AntarcticDoctor

With very pleasant weather yesterday, Santjie and I decided to get some exercise again, and instead of our usual route to the airstrip or depot we skied over to Kleinkoppie, a small peak adjacent to Vesleskarvet. Despite the ambient temperature of -28°C, it was quite comfortable to be our and about as there was very little wind. I’ve put together a short video to give an idea of what it was like.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQKuxzcphVQ[/youtube]

We had our most intense, active and spectacular aurora thus far – a whopping 400 nanotesla flux in the magnetic field (compared to the 40-80 nT that caused most of the other auroras you’ve seen on this site) briefly lit the sky with sweeping green, pink, yellow, red and blue. Unfortunately, invading cloud cover prevented us from seeing the best of the show, and made photography difficult. Another beautiful atmospheric feature also chased us from the roof before too long: ‘diamond dust’. Like a mist of ice, diamond dust is iridescent when lit; the air itself glitters; but the price of its beauty is the biting cold. On the base’s roof, exposed to the sparkling wind at minus-twenty-something-nasty, I was content to lie a while and watch nature’s artwork without fussing over too many photos: Ice crystals shimmered past silver moonlit gossamer clouds, and above it all the aurora morphed and flowed; the ball-gown of Mother Earth trailing into space as she danced her pas de deux with the distant Sun.

We had amazingly lovely weather today – only -9°C and not a breath of wind.  Truly, compared to the recent -20-something with heavy winds we’ve been having, it felt balmy.  Despite the darkness, Sanki and I decided to get out and have some exercise.  Taking cross-country ski’s, we went over to the winter depot to check on the containers and caboose stored there.  It was interesting skiing in the darkness, with only a slight glow on the northern horizon despite being around midday, but the exercise was good and the skis treated us well.  With almost no visual references and no contrast, we really sensed every ripple in the snow and ice through our skis as we glided along.