First impressions
Hello, everyone!
It’s us again; from now on, we’re the ones in charge of the place. Over the next few blog entries, we’ll be telling you who we are and what we’re doing here, but for now just a snapshot: ever since we got here, Eva, our cook, has hardly left the kitchen and seems to anticipate our every wish. Peter, our team leader and station physician, has set up a country doctor’s practice, where he now offers treatments; he’s also put his e-drum set in there and is practicing for the not-yet-founded Neumayer band. “Motor Martin”, our station engineer, has everything under control, from fresh water to our power supply – just like “Bernd the Blitz”, our electrical engineer, who keeps our Skidoos up and running and very much enjoys pushing buttons. We really need to set up a cot for our radio operator Markus, who never leaves his post and is always ready to answer when Neumayer gets a call. Lukas, our meteorologist, tirelessly prepares new weather observations every three hours and gives us whatever type of weather we like. Our geophysics team consists of Nora and Felix, who take turns checking on the magnetic observatory and leaving for traverses. Nellie, our atmospheric chemist, trudges out to the trace elements observatory no matter the weather and tries to keep all the vehicles as far away from it as possible, to avoid skewing the readings. And for those of you who’ve been counting along as you read, that’s right: we now have a tenth team member: thanks to project funding, “Laser Martin”, who we fondly refer to as our “project overwinterer”, was authorised to set up a monitoring container for remote cloud and aerosols sensing at Neumayer, which will gather scientific data for the next year – and, as a nice side-effect, provides us with free laser shows every night.
It’s a crazy place, this station on the ice. When you’re inside, you could almost forget where you actually are! There’s warm water from the taps, the toilets are just like at home (except that we use filtrate water here, so it always has a brownish tinge). Our rooms are heated, there’s a sauna(!) and a cosy lounge, tasty coffee and good food. It’s only when you look out the window that you suddenly remember where you are. Whether it’s cloudy or clear, there’s always glare; it takes a while for the human eye to adjust to the reflective snow.
While we were busy getting settled in, the hustle and bustle of the summer season continued all around us. We watched in suspense as the summer engineering team set up the new wind turbine, laid new filtrate pipelines and moved containers back and forth. Our two geophysicists left on their first traverses to various monitoring stations.
There were several scientific working groups on-site, who focused on taking readings, testing new monitoring instruments, or collecting samples. Storms came and went, and we started to see sunsets again, painting the sky in stunning shades of red and orange. The nights gradually began getting dark enough again for us to turn on the lights.
The penguins took to the water, where they gorged themselves, ensuring they could survive the winter on the ice without any more food. The sea ice broke up completely, so that we could now see the blue water of Atka Bay from our windows. The days grew noticeably shorter and temperatures dropped. On clear nights, we could see the first polar lights. So, as the summer season gradually faded, something like an autumnal atmosphere set in.
Image Gallery
And then, all of a sudden, everything went so fast. Crates were stowed away, bags were packed, you could hear the vacuum cleaners whirring in the hallways, mixing with the general clamour of those getting ready to leave. The big day, when our summer guests would depart again, drew closer and closer. And then, there we stood: ten of us decked out in full polar gear, waving goodbye with a sense of disbelief and then staring as the last aeroplane disappeared from view and the sound of its engines was lost in the distance. Now it was time for what we’d really come here for: our overwintering.
What does it feel like to stand on an ice shelf that’s more than 3,000 km from the nearest outpost of civilisation and to know there won’t be another plane for the next 8 months, and until then, we’re responsible for the whole station? For us, it was a mix of healthy respect for the tasks and challenges ahead, anticipation of what we’d experience, and a bit of melancholy over the departure of people who’d grown dear to our hearts, but also a sense of relief that now things would quiet back down. Maybe the best way to imagine it is the feeling after a big party, when the very last guests have gone home, the house is quiet again, and you flop down on the couch, exhausted, and just put your feet up for a while.
In the meantime, the isolation doesn’t bother us at all, and we’re savouring the last sunny days before the rapidly approaching Polar Night.
You can read more about who we are and what we’re doing here in the upcoming blog entries. Until then, warmest wishes from the Deep South,
Your 43rd overwintering team
