Friday, November 04, 2005
posted 11/04/2005 12:09:00 PM UTC+12, McMurdo Local Time

So, it's been a few days since I've had time and a solid net connection to post here. Kind of short on time at the moment, so this will be a brief update, hopefully with more detail and/or some pictures coming later.

Tuesday was another nice weather day where I worked on laying the willy field hose. We got several hundred feet of hose on the ground, tested, and packed with fuel including running it through two bridges (so that equipment can cross the hose,) down a steep hill (but not too steep for the pisten bully!,) and a pair of valves (that let us isolate sections of the line and drain it out when it comes time to roll it back up next spring.) Had a good time working on that project and got a lot of stuff done too!

Wednesday the weather out was pretty bad, so we were going to take care of tasks around town instead of trying to go lay hose with stiff winds and very low visibility. The ice runway was closed too, so there were many more available fuelies than jobs. I was originally going to go out on the "fuel mule" to help out with fueling things around town, but was feeling the beginnings of a cold, so I talked to my supervisor, Bodie, who just told me to go home and rest rather than hanging around doing small stuff in the barn all day. Went back to the dorm, took a nap, read a bit, and was generally lazy.

Thursday the weather in town was iffy, but we headed out to the ice shelf (basically sea ice that doesn't get melted off annually, so it's really thick) to see what it looked like out there in case it was clear enough to continue on the project. Unfortunately, it was near whiteout conditions out on the ice, so we weren't able to do anything and turned around to head back to the fuels barn. Spent the evening working on various tasks including making some handles for the hundreds of files (of the metal cutting variety) we have around the shop without them, did some fuel deliveries with the Fuel Mule, and helped out with several other small projects. Nice day, and I'm feeling a lot better than Wednesday after a nice rest.

Friday - that's today! So far I've helped out with an ice runway transfer including a bunch of shoveling out the line after our wind the last few days. Just about to head out to the ice shelf to continue on with the hose lay project, will post more later!

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