But not for the warmth..
Tomorrow I’m taking the first stage of the journey to Antarctica, ironically enough though, I’m heading south by first heading north, to Oslo, where the Norwegian Polar Institute have organised an almost direct flight from Oslo to Troll station with a short stopover in Cape Town.
I’m super excited and also suffering a little trepidation. It will be my first field visit to Antarctica, even though I’ve worked in Greenland for many years, the differences will, I imagine be pretty huge…
We also have a very ambitious work plan with pretty novel and experimental equipment. It’s going to be interesting to see how much of what we have planned actually works. Small points of failure can destroy a field season. Though in our case, I’m pretty confident we’ll bring something back, even if it is not as much as I hope. And I’m always a little over-ambitious, but surprisingly often it pays off.
The opportunity to participate in iQ2300 first came up almost 3 years ago, so it’s been on the cards for a while and fieldwork has been on my mind all year. It will be nice to finally get going, even if I don’t necessarily feel ready in spite of the long run-up.
I never really feel ready for fieldwork, but at some point you just have to get on with it, like the penguins nervously clustering on the edge of the iceberg, wondering if there is a leopard seal in the water. Eventually someone jumps (or is pushed), and then they all go in and usually, the water is lovely. Although in our case, I doubt I will even get to see any penguins, the Wasa station, my home for the next 6 weeks or so is rather a long way for the sea. In the meantime the first groups are already out, opening the station ready for our arrival next week, deploying weather stations, running ice penetrating radar and checking out the equipment we’ll need to use. The signal groups we have are no longer just coordination but field updates direct from Antarctica – a miracle of telecommunications that we don’t even think about anymore!
The Autumn has also been far too hectic with my eternal inability to say no to interesting opportunities challenging everyone around me and especially myself. Will I ever learn? I remain extremely grateful for the team at DMI and at home for keeping things ticking over.
However, it has also felt like a sequence of tasks to tick off while the grand départ gets closer, annual meeting, tick, Hackathon, tick, panel meeting, tick and then eventually, annual report, tick, expense claims, tick, Christmas presents, yep, and finally tomorrow may actually come. Hence though, the notable lack of updates on here, I have had to find some slack somewhere on these informal little pieces that I’m unsure anyone reads have definitely been a casualty.
I’m not sure much is going to change the next couple of months either. But I will try to post at least occasionally, work schedule, weather and internet access permitting.
But first it’s time for a little Christmas hygge with my incredible family and my lovely husband who have never asked me not to go..
As ever I’m grateful to the Swedish Polar Secretariat for giving me and the team the opportunity to participate in this field season, as well as the Novo Nordisk Fund whose PRECISE challenge grant has also helped us to pay some of the other costs.
Sterna Paradisaea 