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Date: 12/19/03
Latitude: 82.08 degrees South
Longitude: 101.96 degrees East
Temperature:−22°C(−8°F)
Wind speed: 6 knots
Wind Chill:−30°C(−22°F)
Wind direction: not given
Elevation: 11,300
Kilometers traveled: 970

Notes on daily life:
By Dan

We started the day shuttling and continued all day. The trains have been moving along nicely in 10th gear now that the loads have been divided. By evening we had reached site N132, this is the first of Tim’s broadband seismic sites and he immediately began to download the data and remediate the equipment. Tom and I began setting up the drill site ready to collect some core. Thanks to our slow travel progress we are on a tight time deadline; Matt has given us until 09:00 tomorrow to set up the drill site, collect the core, pack up the drill site, load the gear back on the train and be ready to travel – quite a tall order, but we’ll give it our best shot. By dinner time the drill site was up and ready, after dinner we began drilling and continued to drill all night. By around 08:00 we had collected 15m of ice core and by 09:00 we were packed up and ready to travel.

All night the winds were the gentlest that they had been since we left the South Pole, this was a real blessing as it makes working out in the open a lot more bearable.

 

Date: 12/20/03
Latitude: 82.09 degrees South
Longitude: 104.52 degrees East
Temperature:−22°C(−8°F)
Wind speed: 10 knots
Wind Chill:−33°C(−27°F)
Wind direction: not given
Elevation: 11,200 feet
Kilometers traveled: 1057

Notes on daily life:
By Dan

After packing away all our drill gear we prepared ourselves for some 24-hour driving days. We have to resort to 24-hour days because the deep sugary snow has put us behind schedule and there are other science groups relying on our success. Not to mention the fact that we are still shuttling loads! We have adjusted our shuttle plan to fit in better with the 24-hour driving day. We have worked out that 8-mile shuttle runs take approximately 3-4 hours to complete. So if each driving shift (3 people to a shift) completes two 8-mile runs then the other shift gets 6-8 hours in which to try and sleep. I say to try and sleep because it is very difficult sleeping while you are being thrown around inside your tiny bunk and the sleds are making loud crashes and bangs.

Before we set off on the first shift I was writing the log and my computer decided to die on me. Luckily, I had loaded the satellite modem software onto Tom’s computer before leaving McMurdo so I am still able to write logs and send them out.

By the end of the day we had broken the 1000km distance mark!