Last day on BI

Today is my last day on Black Island ………. at least this season. I leave by helo this afternoon, the last trip on my oh so cool ride to work.

  

We switched over to the 11m equipment last Friday/Saturday night and have been running on it for 5 days. Last night the electricians took the 11m rack of equipment off of it’s on generator and wired the rack back into the normal BI power grid, there was not enough power at BI to run both strings of equipment so we had our own generator all season.

  

We were up testing till 2:00 last night, in bed at 2:40 and I was up at 6:30 – everything feels a bit hazy and distant. The really good thing is all the testing is done and the system looks nice and solid.

  

I have been out here since 12 Nov 2009, so just at 2 months. I will not really miss BI, we all live very close here and I like a little more alone time. I will miss the people, Jesika has been wonderful – an extraordinarily gifted cook and we found more than a few things in common. And then there is Tony who is a lot more than his well deserved rough reputation – he can be extremely funny, insightful and I found his occasional burst of song surprisingly nice but most of all he really cares about BI and the NSF presence in Antarctica and he does his best to insure that the BI station is the best it can be.
Things I will not miss –

 

• going all week without a shower
• being ultraconservative with water
• the waste disposal situation here
• winds that blow so hard for days that you cannot leave the buildings

 

It is a cold grey day outside, occasional flakes of snow and a fog that hides this cold black rock outside our little circle of humanity – it seems a good day to leave a place I will not miss.