Waving goodbye to Polar 6
Camp girls hanging out on the coolest airplane of the ice sheet (x2)
This morning we said goodbye to the Polar 6 DC-3, its friendly crew, our Euronews visitors, and our AWI colleagues. We waved at the airplane and it waved back as it passed over camp.
After a week of almost constant sunshine and a very busy airport, weather converted this afternoon into complete overcast, snow fall, snow drift, high temperatures, no contrast whatsoever, and winds up to 25 knots. In other words, we’ve been extremely fortunate!
As the rock drill continuously digs its way into subglacial sediments, we’re now focusing on our second major task of the coming weeks: clearing out trenches and packing down camp.
What we have done today:
1. Drilling sediment cores with rock drill for hours and hours
2. Waving goodbye to Polar 6 as it left for SFJ
3. Communication with NEGIS: All is well, camp is up and running
4. Strapping and documenting all ice core boxes: Weight: 1.5 tons
5. Setting up aerosol samplers next to water vapor sampling tent
6. Building new mountain for garage
7. Started clearing out science trench
Ad. 1: Today penetration went extremely slowly. A mixture of sediment and ice layers is very difficult to get through. At midnight, the second run of today was still not terminated.
Weather: Started out beautifully with clear blue sky, but during the afternoon the wind picked up and a cloud cover came in with snow.Temperatures –5°C to –10°C, wind 10-25 knots from S.
Do you prefer sugar in your Café Latte? (NEGIS camp yesterday)
No lack of coziness in NEGIS kitchen tent (yesterday)
Loading the aircraft...
Farewell NEGIS camp, see you guys in a month...! (yesterday)
... before take-off in the mist.
FL, Anders Svensson