Day 6; January 28, 2009; Flight to SANAE Station, Vesleskaervet, Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica
Average Daily Temperature: 19.4˚ F
Average Daily Wind Speed: 26.17 mph
Feels Like: -19.85˚ F
Today, I do not have words.
I must show you…
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Tag Archive for 'South Pole'
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From left: Erika, George, Piet, Xolile, Alfie, Diago, and Thomas at Sets and Devices, where ITASC's mobile base structures were fabricated
Day 5; January 27, 2009; Cape Town, South Africa
We continue to happily endure the seemingly never ending process of preparations, and spent the day getting extra tripod plates, DV tapes, a wind jammer for the microphone, s-rings, distilled water for our backup-power fuel cell, emergency blankets, signaling mirrors, a sound card for Ntsikelelo, and other random pieces of the equipment puzzle.
Early in the day we stopped by Bobby De Beer’s warehouse where much of the ITASC’s mobile base was constructed, and met many of the people who built the three structures.
At the end of the day, worn out from all the to and fro, Thomas dropped me off at my hotel, and I took a long and much needed nap before the evening’s events.
We were to be interviewed at 8pm by Caitlin Ross who is a writer for the West Cape News Agency, and would be gathering at Alfons’ hotel for a drink and conversation. We chatted with Caitlin for an hour or so about our expedition and projects. Near the end of the interview, as the clock stuck 9pm, we interrupted the meeting in order to call ALCI to hear the latest on our flight details and to see if we would be leaving tomorrow at 10pm as originally hoped.
To our surprise, they changed the flight schedule again, but this time not to delay it—we were told that the flight would leave the next morning for sure at 9:30am. The anticipation and excitement was palpable—finally, we would fly in!
After a quick bon voyage dinner of burgers and champagne with some friends of Thomas’ I went back to my hotel to pack everything up and rest before the newness of everything the morrow would bring.
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As I prepare for my first trip to Antarctica, now just weeks away, my mind is abound with visions of all the possible permutations of white. My imagination is confounded by the seemingly obvious fact that I cannot know this place in any capacity until I am fully there, feet planted solidly on the ground, eyes absorbing the view of vast ice deserts, breath taking in the cold air.
The existence of Antarctica was first predicted by the ancient mathematician, astronomer and geographer, Ptolemy (1st century AD), who claimed that there must be a southern landmass to balance the North Pole. He named it terra incognita, “unknown land,” and amazingly it would be approximately 1600 years before its existence would be confirmed. According to history, Antarctica was first officially sited by humans in 1820. Thus, the continent has been an invisible and mysterious place to us humans for the majority of our existence. I find this a rather stunning truth. We had, in fact, peered deep into the universe with telescopes long before we had ever seen the 7th continent on our Earth.
Antarctica is entirely extreme, being the coldest and windiest continent on our planet. It is also the driest climate, making Antarctica the largest desert on Earth. It is roughly 4.5 million square miles (14 million square kilometers) in size, which is about the size of the contiguous 48 United States plus about half of Mexico. There are no permanent residents on Antarctica, and even during the “busiest” of science research seasons, there are still only several thousand people on the continent at one time, and they are spread out across 16 research stations operated by various countries for scientific and educational purposes.
For the last four years, I have been reading and absorbing all I can find about Antarctica, and have, rather obsessively, explored this mysterious and remote continent through images, facts, stories and my imagination. Yet, I am awed by the knowing that the true essence of Antarctica remains firmly and deeply unknown to me. Indeed, what could possibly prepare someone for a journey to the only naturally uninhabitable continent on Earth?
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