Capt. Splash on Ice: Misc. Duties and Tower Shots

Temperature: -49.7C

Wind Chill: -72.6C
Wind Speed: 18.8 kts

I didn't intend to leave August out of the blog completely...it just happened! Sorry folks, I'm not trying to imply nothing note worthy happened all last month. I just didn't get any pictures of anything going on! There were a few final aurora pictures that I will throw in here a little later on.

There are a few things that I do down here that fall outside the realm of my original job description, but they are jobs that I enjoy being a part of. One of them is a monthly maintenance task that was given to our heavy machine operator, Boyd, but that's a thankless task to do alone, so I usually try to make myself available, help him out...dipping fuel tanks.

We do this every month to make sure that the amount of fuel left over matches what we expected. There are five tanks (three on the ground, and two above them) in each bank, and nine banks.

That's a lot of dipping...and that's just in the fuel arch. We have twelve tanks out at the edge of our station, what folks affectionately call "the End of the World".

The last couple months, a couple other winter overs have tackled the fuel arch, and Boyd and I have gone out to get the emergency tanks at the end of the world.

Some of the tanks are the right size to put a measureing stick down inside, get the reading that way. There are five, though, that require a tape to be dropped down inside, which takes a little longer to get the reading. Problem is, if the wind is blowing, any extra time up on those tanks seems like an eternity!

The last couple times we have gone out, though, there have been extra hands, helping write down levels which helps us out tremendously!!

The sunlight is starting to creep over the horizon, and a few days ago was the last opportunity to catch the glow from the sun on one side of the station and the setting moon on the other. I almost missed it, too. I had to get up to the top of our tower, and got half the moon as it was dipping below the horizon.

The Doc, Ella, stitched together some of my panoramic shots into a couple nice images...thanks Ella!!

Some of the shots came out pretty blurry. I had to slip off the mittens to take some of the shots, and the tripod I was using was slipping through the platform at the top of the tower...but I figure for -95F and 20 knot winds, these pictures didn't come out half bad!!

There's more to follow, and I can almost guarantee there will not be as long a stretch until my next posting! Hard to believe that in a couple months from now I will be comfortable in considerably less clothing...man, this year went by fast!!

With the sun coming up, I am starting to look forward to new folks arriving on station, as well as my next adventure (still need to figure out where and what that will be!), but there is still plenty left to do down here, and I will try to keep everyone up to speed. One of my last shots of ARO, the Milky Way and an aurora...