12 November
Stacy’s turn to write again:

Today we finished up the experimental site at Explorer’s Cove! Dan, Kathy and Aaron dove first and finished the fencing and set out the buckets containing the different treatments of mud.

Stacy driving the skidoo with our tanks - ready to load the divers onto the Nansen sled behind.

A view of our camp from up on the hill. You can see the stubborn Polaris 6-wheeler on the far right.

Of course I hadn’t explained very clearly how I had ordered the experimental treatments in the buckets, and so I confused poor Kathy. But it all got sorted out. John came in on an A-star helo in the morning. The A-stars are the fast, little helos, and Barry, the pilot, swung by the dive hole on his way out so that we could wave at him. We couldn’t get the 6-wheeler started in the morning, but it ran fine once Dan and Aaron changed the spark plugs.

In the afternoon, I dove with John and Aaron and we finished deploying the treatments. It all looks very neat and organized now, and I wonder what it will look like in a year when we return. Robbie Score came out to do the camp inspection over the next couple of days, and we are very glad to have her cheery company. She is knitting a gorgeous hat and is down to the last few steps, but none of us know enough to help her finish. In the afternoon Dan mixed our organic enrichments into the mud and I loaded the treatments, ready to go for hopefully our last dives tomorrow. But in the evening the weather started to shut down, with wind picking up and some blowing snow. Our evening plans for a soccer game on the ice were put on hold, and we crowded around Kathy’s computer to watch a movie instead.

A view of the Commonwealth Glacier before the weather got bad.

The "kids" at the comm box on top of the hill near camp. From here the Optaphone radios to McMurdo, and we can do things like arrange our helo flights back.

I arranged helo flights home (that is, back to McMurdo) for Friday and Saturday so we have a little extra time in case things do not go smoothly tomorrow. We finished the day with a wonderful chocolate cake that Kathy made. Living in the field camp is luxurious!