April 13: Friday the 13th-- a bittersweet day.
Wind speed 3.6 mph
Air Temperature -14.8 C 5.4 F Wind Chill -11.1 F
Longitude 72—11.238 N Latitude 146—36.642 W
Today is Friday the 13th, and a bittersweet day. We have all worked very hard to get to this Ice Camp, experience the Arctic environment, and get the scientific measurements done. Now most of the science has been completed and today the first group of scientists is leaving with their equipment. Cathy and I have been doing some packing and then said goodbye to the group of scientists to leaving the ice camp on the 9:30 flight. We spent the rest of the morning mapping the building locations in the camp using a GPS unit, and taking stereo photos of the perimeter. Mani Thomas will take these digital photos and try to process them to give a 3-D image of the camp.
Ice Camp.
After lunch Cathy and I walked out to the end of line 6 to redo several of the stereo photos at several stations to see if comparisons with the first set of photos will show measurable differences. The stereo photos haven’t been used in sea ice science just like this before and so the technique is experimental.
Tomorrow Cathy and I will be leaving the ice camp. So tonight is a good night for a shower. An hour after dinner I put dibs on the shower. A couple of the people laughed and told me not to make any sparks because they were fueling the stoves. I went and got my things and started to shower. Suddenly there was a loud bang! I jumped a mile! I figured someone had thrown a fire cracker near the shower door. I stuck my head out and looked at a bunch of shocked faces. "That scared the heck out of me! Who did that?” Then everyone started to laugh. One of the heating stoves near the shower wasn’t burning efficiently and had back fired; startling everyone. What are the odds of that?