Live From Antarctica: Friday December 19
Six new people have arrived today: Ronald, one of Jacques compatriot's (we will thus be hearing lots of typical melodious conversations between these two French Canadians); Johan, one of the IPF's main characters and project manager of the Station's construction; Stephan, the new station's site foreman; and Denis, Rafaël and Sébastien, three engineers from Laborelec - Rafaël will be working on the power of the electronics involved in the energy management of the station, Sébastien is the water treatment specialist and Denis is Mister "cable-man" (36 km of cables will be needed!).
One of the advantages of this mission is the constant evolution of the "human landcape". Aside from our new recruits, we now also have guests: the DC-3 crew who will be flying the scientists back to Novolazarevskaya station tomorrow will be spending the night here, at the Cosmos camp (this is our base camp's new name)! We fear this planning doesn't have much to do with tight schedules, but more to do with the food served at Utsteinen (thanks to François!). It's most certainly beats the bortsch soup served at the Russian Novo station.
Nathalie Pattyn
Picture: Basler at Utsteinen - © International Polar Foundation