Written 26 Dec 2007 3670 meters above sea level Maximum & Minimum temperatures: - 25 to -33 °C Last night we packed down the Christmas tree and prepared for setting out this morning. We were rolling at 8am and made good progress without any kind of surprises, driving 86 km. Also, we passed a milestone when we crossed the 80 degrees south mark this afternoon at 3pm. We will stop for tonight and head out tomorrow morning for our next science stop which we probably reach in the afternoon. - Jan-Gunnar Photo: Lasse is leading our way towards the South Pole (Photo: Jan-Gunnar Wint...

Thursday 27th December 2007 We can see icebergs again. There is sunshine and blue sky and the continent appears as a ribbon of white satin with a hem just starting to fray at the edges. The trawls are back in action at double time, completing three stations between midnight and lunchtime. The whiteboard is rotating through a series of ticks, and shortening the average time for each trawl. The Sitrep trumpets success: “We have so far caught and documented about 28 different species of fish from the trawl samples. The fish assemblage appears to be quite different from that found at the coastal sites off the French research station, Dumont D'Urville, about 40 Nm west southwest of our current position. Many of these fish are new records for the ...

22 December 2007 Westhaven Nunatak, Antarctica. The goal of this field season is to deploy GPS systems on bedrock, so we can understand how the bedrock is moving. These systems are meant to be “permanent”, in that they will operate year round. We get to these sites by helicopter, and a twin otter (a type of fixed wing aircraft). When we are within 200 km of McMurdo, the U.S. base station, we use helicopter support to reach our sites. Unfortunately, weather has been bad this year. A lot of low pressure systems, which means low-hanging clouds, which means no helicopter work. We had an opportunity last week where weather was good, so we took advantage of it and flew both during the day and the night (it’s light here 24 hours a day in the summer). We ...

Written Wednesday, 26 December The phone in my cabin range at 8:00 this morning – two or three hours earlier than I would normally get up for my noon to midnight shift in the chemistry lab. Normally when the phone wakes me up it’s because there’s a problem with one of our instruments, but today I was pleasantly surprised that this was not the case. It was the chief scientist calling to say that it was my turn for a helicopter flight, and could I be on the flight deck in an hour. The daily flights are done so that the biologists led by Jan van Franeker (AKA, The Flying Dutchmen) can count the wildlife in the area. They take along one extra person each day to help spot animals and enjoy the view. ...