December 28 - 30, 2010... Braving the wind and cold while working on the ice.

Almost every day, I wore 4 layers at the bottom, 6 layer on top including the big red parka, 2 hats, 4 layers of gloves with hand warmers, 3 layers of socks with a pair of toe-warmers, goggles with a customized fleece nose protector, and white big bunny boots (resembling the big boots Mickey Mouse wears).

This picture is taken in a still decent weather. Most of the times, it would be so bad that the whole nose and mouth my cap would be white.

At this altitude (South Pole’s pressure altitude is about 11000 ft), one slows down a lot. Short of breath especially while climbing up anywhere is pretty common. When you walk, you walk very slowly. You can hear a funny noise your bunny boots make on the loose, fluffy, and freshly blown in snow. When you walk, your breath sounds as if you are in a space suit and breathing through an oxygen mask or something. Your breath freezes as it leaves your nostrils.. It shows up as a frost or snow accumulated on your nose cover and parka collar. The air is so clean and dry, that you feel like a searing pain in your lungs every time you inhale without some kind of cover on your nose. You take your outer gloves off, you will start feeling chilling numbness in your fingers. If you ignore this and don’t start warming the hands by keeping them in your inner pockets, you are likely to encounter a throbbing sensation and pain in your fingers. The same goes for toes. If you stand still in snow for long time, toes will just start hurting. You need to make sure you keep moving your fingers and toes because you don’t want to have them frozen and dead.. :P If your breath goes inside your goggles, they will fog. The worst part is, if you take your goggles/ glasses out to clean this fog, you will see a frost instantly developing on the glasses. This is indeed a very harsh continent. But, there is a different excitement and fun of actually being here. With some experience and trials, one learns the best way to keep himself/herself warm (with different combination of clothes, different number of layers etc.) You start reducing the dressing time eventually. I am now ready to head out within 10 minutes instead of 20 minutes. Eat, drink water, sleep and work is all you do when you are here. But, trust me it is fun.. :)

The other thing I would like to mention here is the satellite availability. Phone and internet worked only during these satellite times. We had limited availability during early mornings and afternoons. So, during my work days, the only time I could log on to the internet was right after I get up. This added up with the physical exertion everyday made me take a long time to get my blog updated.

Satellite pass at South Pole.

So, all we did for the next three - four days was work, sleep and eat. With the help of a couple of general assistants, Bob and I made a great progress working with the second system. However, we started having some or the other problem with our instruments on both the systems: search coil magnetometer, flux gate magnetometer and dual frequency GPS receiver. We started debugging and experimenting with the help of people back in US.