January 1, 2011... Beginning of the new year at an amazing place

This is the first day of the year 2011. We at the South Pole, were probably one of the first people to get the new year’s sunlight. Well, we had the sun all the time up in the sky. The way we celebrated the New Year was to go to the pole at midnight. Well, of course it was bright and sunny. Before we bundled up and left, I made a quick poster in the arts and crafts room to wish everyone “Happy New Year from the South Pole”. I had also drawn a map of Antarctica with South Pole marked on it. It was basically made for my folks back home, but it turned out to be a poster representing the whole South Pole wishing the world a happy New Year. The plan was made between 6 of us to go to the pole and have a toast at the midnight. We got a nice surprise when almost 50-60 people came out in their red parkas to the Pole at around 11.50 am. At the new location of the South Pole, there was a temporary marker as the ceremony of “Moving the Geographic South Pole” was supposed to take place at 10 am on Jan 1, 2011. We all stood up near the new marker. Our leader in this endeavor and the NSF representative at the Pole Vladimir Papitashvili had a GPS. He did a countdown and we all cheered “Happy New Year” at 12.00 am. Then there was a big photo session. The crowd was all bubbly and we all had a great time. My poster was extensively flashed everywhere.. ;) I am glad I had an idea of doing something like this. It was quiet windy and cold (-39 deg C with wind chill). As the cold started overpowering the enthusiasm, we decided to continue the celebration inside the galley, our dining place. Before I left the pole, I managed to get a picture at the pole with my sign and the Indian flag. I also went around the world in the shorted circle i.e. around the South Pole... :D We came inside to continue our celebration. At 1.15 am at night, in Antarctica, I had two helpings of strawberry and pecan ice cream. It was just an awesome feeling to see an enormous white landscape from the window and eat ice cream with a chill running down your spine just with the excitement. I think this was by far the best New Year celebration I had.

Early morning, I got a wakeup call from home wishing me a Happy New Year. Yes.. we all have individual rooms here with a personal phone. So, when the satellite is up, anyone could call us at this US number. It was pretty convenient. :) Charged up with the warmth of talking to my people, I got up and got ready again to brave the cold. Put on just 3 layers instead of 5 or 6 and went out to the pole at 10.00 am. It was the time for Pole moving ceremony. An experience of life time and a high honor because, everyone present there at the ceremony actively participated in the transfer. Every year, there is a new pole with a new marker. This year, the marker is shaped like a sextant used by early Antarctic explorers. We made a human chain in a shape of ‘U’ from the old pole position to the new position. The new South Pole traveled from each and every hand in the chain to its new location. I felt greatly honored when I handed over my pole to the next person.. This was indeed an experience of life time.

We brunched and set off to finish our work. It had been pretty windy today. Wind speed ~ 10 knots, temperature with wind chill -40 deg C. But, for us, the main attraction was to finish up the work as soon as possible on the New Year and get ready to come back home on 3rd Jan. :) Although, I love this place, I can't wait to be back to civilization.

December 31, 2010... The last day of the year 2010.

Our field team was lucky to get back on December 30. I learnt later that they were very depressed when the weather went pretty nasty the previous day and the plane had to return back midway without getting them on board. If the weather were bad the next day, our field team, would have been held up there at least till Jan 3, 2011 because of the yearend holidays at the South Pole station.

Bob and I worked on our Iridium antenna. We experimented with it by designing a ground plane for the same and installing it with a slight tilt away from the GPS antenna to avoid interference.

We had a nice dinner and then was a time for a movie. We watched Star Wars 6, Return of Jedi. This movie reminded me of the fact that we at Antarctica, are staying at a colony which resembles a space colony, except the gravity part. This station is designed in a very modern way with parts which can be detachable under fire or any other disastrous extreme conditions. The whole construction even the names of the doors (Destination Alpha, destination Zulu) etc give it an appearance of a space colony.

There is another interesting fact I would like to mention. Antarctica is an amazing place. It’s dry, windy, and chilly. At the South Pole, it is even higher. And the amazing thing is this is such a harsh continent that on the plateau and the Pole, there is no living thing other than humans colonized here. I realized there is not one insect in either McMurdo or South Pole station.

Later in the evening, just before the New Years, I had an idea to create a poster wishing everyone a happy new year.

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.

December 27, 2010... Field team and Pole team

Early morning, Hyomin and Joseph along with our mountaineer Julian left to the remote site PG2 in a twin otter. They will try replacing an Iridium cable and see if we could communicate with the system, if not, instead of debugging in -40 deg C, they will pack and bring the system back.

There was a nice surprise awaiting me at the galley. We had Indian lunch that day: naan, masoor daal, chicken curry, palak saag, flower-pees subji. :D I was extremely thrilled to have Indian food at the South Pole.. :)

Me and Bob started to get our cargo together on the other site for our second system. The cargo people here with their huge caterpillars, helped us move our heavy instrument boxes.

December 26, 2010... Sunday: Still a work day for us

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 3^rd 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!

December 25, 2010... Merry Christmas

I stayed back on the Christmas day and along with the whole station enjoyed the holiday. My other team members worked even that day. In the morning, we had some gifts to exchange. The later part of the day was slow and relaxing for me when I tried to catch on my blog. At 10.00 am, many enthusiasts at the station took part in the “race around the world” which was a 3 mile-long lap around the station starting and ending at the South Pole.

Race around the world starting at the South Pole.

The whole day, our galley scroll was showing Santa Claus’s North pole to South Pole flight status.. We finally learned that the flight was delayed due to Ornery reindeer. :D

Later in the evening, we had a Christmas special dinner. The blinds in the galley were down to imitate night (we were already getting bored of too much light, this was a welcome change) and the TVs showed fire. Everyone was dressed nicely and we were served an amazing dinner and wine. After the dinner, we had a small social where we were filled in with loads of exciting stories by the polar research veterans: Bob, Vladimir and Don.

Christmas fire on the Galley TV.

A nice Christmas special dinner.

December 22 - 23, 2010... Getting Acclimatized at the Pole

On December 22, 2010, we just surveyed places to decide where two of our Space Science systems are going to be. We stopped by the South Pole and took some pictures at Southern end of the world. This was the highlight of the day. More excitement followed with our snow mobile training in the afternoon. A snow mobile is a pretty cool and useful vehicle. We used two machines for four of us for the coming days, to go to our farthest site, move stuff around etc. We got our stuff moved to our work place. A cherry on the cake for me was I got to see sundogs that day.

Sundogs. The picture is not that great though.. It was just too bright, I could hardly see my camera screen.. I do have a video on my flip. I will upload it on youtube once I get back to US.

Me riding a snow mobile.

December 23 was the third day at South Pole and we were already in on the ice shoveling, setting up our stuff. While your body is trying to get acclimatized, i.e. while it is already working hard to settle up oxygen level, heart and respiration rate, you need to take it a bit easy by not giving the body extra muscle work. I learnt a tough lesson that day. My body could not take the strain. That resulted in shortness of breath, high respiration and heart rate, and dry cough and fever. I had to stay back for next couple of days to avoid any medical complications and high altitude sickness.