have an ICE day 

Intro

I am on my way back to McMurdo Station, Antarctica for my third season on the Ice. I'm working in the Crary Lab again this season as the Administrative Coordinator.

Toilet Tally

521 toilets scrubbed as of February 18, 2007

Weather at McMurdo

Contact Me

Email: katieantarctica@gmail.com

My Mailing Address

Relevant Reads

• Big Dead Place
• Terra Incognita
• Ice Bound

Antarctica Movies

• March of the Penguins
• Eight Below
• Madagascar
• Happy Feet
• The Thing
• Alien vs. Predator

Other Ice Websites

• Antarctic Slang
• Ana Bell
• Erin's Life on The Ice
• Sweet As
• South Pole Dudes
• Phil Jacobsen
• Sandwich Girl
• winter camp

Visitors

My Photos

Monday, September 18, 2006

Questions from Aunt Jo in Wisconsin

My Aunt Retta passed these questions on to me from my Aunt Jo as her computer is on the fritz. I'll paraphrase the questions.

Q: What kind of stars, if any, do you see?
A: We see the stars of the Southern Hemisphere when it's clear out. I haven't actually seen many stars from here but I think you can see the Southern Cross.

Q: Tell more about the clouds and sky.
A: Right now we are able to see the Southern Lights (aka Aurora Australis) on clear nights. I have yet to see them, but I guess last week they were visible.

Here are a couple photos taken of Auroras by a winter-over, Anthony Powell, in the McMurdo area:






Another neat Antarctica cloud/sky thing are the NACREOUS CLOUDS that appear at Win-Fly. We have yet to see them, and there's a chance we may not see them at all. But click on this sentence to see an amazing photo of them.


Q: How much day light now?
A: More and more every day. We finally had the sun shine on us about two weeks ago. Before that you had to walk out to Hut Point to see it. According to the weather department here at McMurdo, the sun rose at 7:11am this morning and set at 6:28pm. Tomorrow, they are predicting sunrise at 7:03am and sunset at 6:35pm. So sunrise is earlier every day and sunset is later every night.

Q: When you call your folks what time is it in Westby again? How do you make the calls? Satellite? How long can you talk? Who's paying the bill on it?
A: I am 17 hours ahead of Westby right now. I believe that will change with daylight savings time. I usually try to call the States on Sunday afternoons as it is the most compatible with my schedule and everyone back home. We have phones in our rooms here that we can use to dial out. I have to type in a three-digit code to get an outside line. Right now that's not so difficult to do, but when mainbody starts I've heard that it can be an hour wait to get an outside line. Once I get the outside line, I have to dial a 1-800 calling card number to call anywhere. The only cost of the phone call is the calling card minutes. We use commercial and government satellites for the phone and internet. The signal is sent to Washington state, so I'm basically making a domestic call. I think I pay something like 5 cents a minute. We are asked to keep our phone calls short, although right now it's really not a big deal.