Many projects in Antarctica are 24/7 operations, and ANDRILL is no exception. We take advantage of the 24 hours of continuous daylight at this time of the year. (Well, there is a short 'night' period between midnight and 3 or 4 in the morning, when the sun goes down a bit but never really goes under and so it looks like dusk. This is getting shorter every day and soon the sun will be all the way up and move in a tight circle above.) It makes for an exhausting working season but it also is much more efficient.
Night view of Mt. Erebus as seen from the drill site. Photo by Scott Drew
And so this year I am working the night shift again, which suits me fine. I like this shift a lot more, since we do not have to deal with visitors and media (this year we expect a flurry of media activity, but not as intense as last year’s.) It also is quiet around the drill rig with only 9 people: there are four drillers, two core techs, one person in charge of the physical properties team, plus Scott and I. (In contrast, day shift has 16 to 18 people around here all the time!)
A couple of days ago we decide to adjust to working nights before the core starts coming out of the ground so we would be ‘fresh’ and alert. Last year we went into night shift ‘cold turkey’ on the first day that core came up. The adrenaline of working on the first meters of real core, combined with all the glitches and small problems that arise when you actually start something for real, kept Terry and I awake, and made the night transition much easier. But the truth is Scott and I are dying; this year there is no core yet, and no one is at the drill site other than one or two drillers keeping an eye on the rig, By 5 or 6 in the morning (our shift ends at 8am) we are barely speaking and often look (and feel) catatonic.
Tonight is our third night and we were expecting core. Still no core but the whole team is here, so it is more tolerable. Some do movies and others catch up on e-mail, read, or work on other things. Maybe tomorrow night we start feeling a little bit more alive.