Living On the Bottom of the World
Written by Nate Farber
Edited by Joey Parcells
July 23-8:17 A.M.-
I just finished eating breakfast. John made some
delicious ham & eggs with hash browns. Today I am scheduled to go with
Erin and Terry out to site A to check our test results on the ground lab
and then see how Kim is doing with tagging penguins. Then finally travel
over to site D where Ken is watching elephant seal behaviors. Right now,
I am running over a few lab results I got from Erin yesterday on sites
A & b. The results seem normal and show little change over the past
month. My computer layout shows that the temperature is increasingly dropping
and reaching a fatal all time low. If this continues, it may...
July 23-9:02 A.M.-
Sorry for the interruption. James had a little
trouble loading the equipment onto the cargo van and it created a bit of
a racket but it's taken care of, fortunately. What I was saying about the
temperatures was that if the steady drop of temperature over the past week
or two persists, we may be in for some extreme windchill and frostbite
danger. Having the average daily temperature already around -47 F. If it
got any colder, all personnel at the base would be ordered to stay inside
the premises and all openings to the exterior of the building be closed
off so that the wind drafts would be unable to reach the center of the
building where the main lobby is located. I f any wind entered the building
at this extremely cold temperature, it may cause power failure or some
other mechanical difficulty and would make it very hard for the LTER crew
to do any of the necessary duties needed to be done at this location. The
average daily drop of temperature is 7 F. That means at approximately on
July 31, the temperature would be -100 F or lower. Well, time for me to
get Terry and Erin and get on our gear.
July 23-6:45 P.M.-
Erin, Terry, and I just got back to base about
an hour ago and we just finished dinner. I just got out of a nice warm
shower and I am sitting on my sofa right now drinking some coffee. Due
to the freezing temperatures outside, we had to wear extra clothing and
double amounts of emergency supplies along with us. The temperature when
we got back was -69 F! All three of us were shivering to the bone and Terry's
face was slightly frostbitten despite wearing two ski masks and a shield
hood. I came back with an extremely cold right hand that was almost turning
light blue. Erin came back without a single mark, scratch, or bruise. Amazing!
I don't know what women have but it's definitely something good since it
keeps them warm and protected. Well, I am going to get some shut-eye. Busy
day tomorrow-again. Good Night!