Full Season Begins

Scott and I live in the tuning-fork looking building on the upper left part of this pic. Elizabeth lives in the IKEA-looking blue building.

A French mini-station next to town has been sending up weather balloons. (All the pics on this blog entry have been "borrowed" from the shared computer drive.)

It might look like all I do is go out on these rec trips, but the complete opposite is true. As a third year person in shuttles, I ended up being very heavily involved in training everyone. Two years ago, you would see people knitting, reading, or milling about during long periods of downtime as the season ramped up, but this year every spare moment was utilized for training. I have never talked so much in my life. On the one hand, it is nice to be the one in the know, and to be able to help people figure out this highly complex job, but on the other hand, I get tired of hearing myself yammer on and on :) There must be 10,000 bits of information to get this job down. It really takes two seasons to have a complete handle on it, and I am still learning new things most every day.




These pics were taken by Nate, a fellow shuttle driver.

 


Scott and I will be leading a trip out to the iceberg and historical hut this weekend. It is all on volunteer off time, which means we don't really have a day off. It means so much for people to be able to take this 6-hour adventure though.



Like I said....lots of hot air coming out of my mouth this past month :)



It is very difficult policing people in the hut. You can't touch anything. Not the funnest part of the job...



We drive out on the deltas and park them out on the ice. The open sea is only 10 miles away from here.



Time stands still here. You get the sense that you are seeing exactly what Shackleton and Scott saw a hundred years ago.





Here I am ordering people around again.



These delta rides can be quite rough for passengers in the back. I made the mistake as a driver of asking the passengers over the radio if they wanted it (meaning their ride) fast and bumpy or smooth and slow. All I could hear for a response was laughter. Oops, no inuendo there.



We have to tote a survival sled behind the deltas.



Tonight is the Halloween party! Lots of pics to follow. Elizabeth and 7 other janos have been working on an incredible dance routine to perform in front of the entire station tonight at the party. Hope I can post a film clip of it. Also, this past week I had a close encounter with 4 emperor penguins - I will post pics soon.

In shuttles, we finally have shifted over to 5 12-hour days, which means I will have two days off a week now. Finally, a few free moments to think, to walk and run, to just be for an hour...ahhhh.