I was ready to go out again with my team and work on our first system. We almost finished working on it. We had to revisit it later to fix some of our instruments after we heard back the status from our engineer and our Steve from Ann Arbor.
What was more tiring during this day was changing the clothes every time I head out or come back. For the coming few days, I decided not to go through this hassle and keep all my layers except the parka (even though you sweat a lot inside the heated station) when we return to the station for lunch etc.
Later in the evening, we dressed up again and went to the Pole to take some pictures. I held our Indian flag high and was a proud Indian to put it next to the South Pole. Just a reminder, Antarctica is a free continent and doesn’t belong to any nation.
We could not start our work on the second system. It was necessary to finish building the two systems at the Pole before our departure date on 3rd Jan, 2011. So, amongst four of us, I decided to stay back and help Bob set up the next system at the Pole while Hyomin and Joseph were going to fly towards the remote camp on the Eastern Antarctic plateau about 650 km from the pole to retrieve a system that stopped working in a month after it was deployed 2 years back. In a way, I was glad stay back in the warmth of the station at least at nights instead of sleeping in cold tents on the plateau. I also had a loads of good food available all the time at the station!
1 comment:
Cant tell you how amazing i felt seeing you holding the tricolor...this is EXACTLY what i always believed u wud be doing...making your country and its people really really proud...hats off Kshitija!
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