December 2, 2007
Today I developed my first injury due to the cold. Painful chilblains on four of my fingers. It’s not all bad though. Today has also been one of the most successful science days we’ve had since we set foot in Antarctica. We started off the day still frustrated from yesterday. We had decided that we would move camp further up the Canyon to see if that would help our data collection. Unfortunately the weather had different plans. The wind was too strong this morning to attempt a move. Rather than sit in our tents again, we decided to go for a walk and amazingly found an area of blue ice that had been uncovered by the high winds. On it were lots of cryoconite holes- exactly what Ruth has been looking for (for days) and only about 300m from camp. There was suddenly a lot of frenzied activity. We went out together and swept the ice of snow to make the holes more visible. Whilst Ruth and Phil were busy sampling we suddenly realised that on the boulder field next to the ice were hundreds of lichen. It’s the most lichen we’ve seen since our first day on the Henderson Glacier. Not only was there loads of it, there were also some types we hadn’t seen before. It may not sound too exciting but we were over the moon! It was so good to finally be collecting some good samples and data. We stayed out till about 6.30pm running a transect and collecting results.
Now we are settled in for the evening with our evening meal. My favourite meal of the day is dinner time as we make a hot meal by pouring water into a bag of dehydrated food. It doesn’t sound nice but after a long day it is great. We recently got asked what our favourite meals were. For dinner I prefer tuna and pasta. Everyone is different though- Ruth likes sweet and sour chicken best. We all agree on the worst. Chile Con Carne. It is grim. On days we pull it out of our food bags we can’t face it and put it back in the sledge. This could mean that we end up eating it for a week straight at the end of the expedition but it is worth the risk. We are carrying six days of extra rations so we are hoping we will get away with it.
It is difficult eating almost the same thing everyday but I think one of the hardest things about being in Antarctica is missing family and friends at home. We are not allowed to have any personal contact with family whilst we are away. This is to protect us from hearing any news that might effect how we are here. Things are quite hard for us and any bad news might be enough to impact on our safety here and the safety of others in the team. This means that I haven’t had any contact with my fiance, parents or sisters since November 3rd. As the days go by I’m finding this harder and harder! So I want to send a little message to my family here to say I miss them very much, I hope all is well and I’m really looking forward to seeing them soon. I also want to wish my fiancé Dave a very happy birthday for the 30th November. I’m looking forward to celebrating it properly when I get home.
We are currently sitting in our tents at the foot of our last steep climb. Tomorrow we will pack up and attempt to pull the sledges up the steepest part of Connell Canyon. The other day as we were climbing the glacier of Connell Canyon we had a very close encounter. Parts of the glacier were so steep that we had to pair up to tow the pulks up to the crest of the glacier. Ian and I left one pulk there using skis to fasten it in the strong winds, unfortunately we did not have a snow stake with us. The wind was so strong that it broke the pulk free and it came hurtling across and down the glacier towards us. We all scattered to avoid it but fortunately it rolled to a halt before it reached us. We can do without that sort of adventure!
