This is not a blog

Anyway, the DC3 or Basler, had an accident early on this week, and thankfully, nobody got hurt. Could have been us! We were meant to fly out right before then. So that's good, but now we are definitely not going to AGO5, so that's disappointing. But then again, now we can go home, or at least I hope to make it to Warwick's family new years getshintogetherdig on the south island. But first I gotta clean up some cargo and prepare it to return to the US, oh the hard work of antfartica.

After making fun of the Bob, I must say that he is quite the icebreaker. Last year I barely met anybody, let alone remember their names. But this year I wanted to broaden my picture of who comes down here, and Bob has a knack for starting random conversations with random people. So in short I tag along with a bunch peeps to go check out Scott Base, browse the gift shop and partake in their brews. Anyway, fun bunch and we met up again the next day to take a tour of the power plant, water desalination, and waste water plant. Power was not so interesting just a
bunch of loud generators. The water was a bit more interesting, it gets pumped right out sea, under the ice, and gets pumped through a reverse osmosis to pull the salt out. But the waste treatment plant took the cake, not only did the guy who worked there know his stuff, he was a
really good explainer. It smelled rather earthly, even though it was enclosed in a warehouse. Oh my god, Poop! Right there! When the bacteria are all done the water is cleaner than what most people drink but it still get dumped back in the ocean. People just can't get over the "yuck" factor of drinking poop water even though it would be more efficient than desalination.

From Antarctica 2,...

Oh did I mention that two of the guys are knitters? so we started to have swig and stitch nights, where we knit in front of the infinite loop of bad movies with some beers. Just finished my third hat and I am teaching, as i am learning, to double knit (that where you knit a double layer reversible two color thingy at the same time, confused, good because it's weird)

Whoa, I saw some big seals just outside the base on the sea ice, three of them were just loafing, but then a fourth surfaced out of the sea ice to catch it's breath for a few minutes and went back under. From about 100ft away you could still hear them breathe (and fart or was that just the ice cracking?). Now if I just taste a penguin, my experience would be complete.

# posted by plauale @ 12:40