Sunday 23 October 2005
Nightshift
I've been on nights for the last week so I'm feeling a bit tired this weekend as I'm try to get back onto days. We all take it in turns to do a week of night shift so that there is always someone up to keep an eye on things on the platform. As well as covering the radio between 8pm and 8am the nightwatchman is there so that there would be a quick response to any urgent problem like a fire.
You also have a few other jobs to do, including baking bread for everyone. It takes a bit of practice to get the hang of it, and early on in the winter it isn't uncommon to go to make toast only to find shrivelled rocks instead of loaves of bread. Fortunately after a while most people seem to get the hang of it.
A finished batch of bread.
Another task is to take 3 hourly meteorological observations, which are combined with those done by the met team to provide a 24 hour record of the weather. The "night met" isn't as in depth as they do in the day - it is limited to recording the fraction of the sky covered with cloud, the visibility in kilometres and if there is anything else happening (like snow fall or sun halos). This week the weather has been pretty good and I've been treated to some great skies when I've gone outside. The sun was dipping below the horizon for just a few hours before rising again at four in the morning. A couple more weeks and it will stop setting at all until February.
The Sun rising behind the Antarctic Plateau, with the Clean Air Sector Lab in the foreground.
Apart from breadmaking and met, the nightshift person does a few other odd jobs like cleaning the bathrooms and changing the towels. The rest of the night you can do what you like and most people take advantage of the break from routine to watch a few films. After two years down here I think I've now seen every film on base that I want to watch so it's getting increasingly difficult to find anything decent to put on. I'm looking forward to being able to go to the video shop at home and catching up on everything I've missed!
The glow from the sunrise to the South makes the snow glow pink.
Before everyone goes to bed I have managed to sneak outside a couple of times for a bit of kiting. Yesterday the snow surface was really hard so I had a go with a buggy instead of a snowboard. It's quite a different experience and took a while to get used to but it's a nice change from boarding. You can't get up as much speed as you can on a snowboard but turns seem to be much easier and the big tyres seemed to absorb more of the bumps.
Kite buggying past the Laws platform. Photo by Frances.
Posted by simon at 4:08 PM | Feedback (11)