Merry Christmas everyone! I am writting this on Christmas day here in Antarctica, and while it may be summer, there is still cold temps and a little snow on the ground. There have been a handful of Christmas parties around base the last few days, as everyone was given both 24th and 25th off to celebrate, and on Christmas day the base held it's annual softball tournament. Teams were generally made up from individual departments, and at the time of writting of this, they were down to the last two games of the day. I was on the utilities team and we were unfortunately beaten in the first round by the defending champs, the fire department. It was still a fun game even if we ended up losing. The rules are changed slightly to accommodate so many games in a single day, like games are only six innings and there is an hour time limit per game. Needless to say, with that short of a playing time, most games don't even make it to six innings. 

Outside of the holidays, everything else is business as usual. I am spending my days in the water plant mostly, helping to keep the water flowing. The sea ice is getting very thin, and cracks and holes are forming everywhere. This is bringing more and more wildlife closer to base, mostly seals, but the first penguins of the season were spotted yesterday. I was unable to get out to go and get any pictures of them, but after talking with some folks who have worked down here for a few years, it's not unheard of for them to cruise around town occasionally looking for handouts. Stay tuned, when I get the chance to post some photos of the clumsy little birds, I absolutely will.

Speaking of photos, I realized after looking through my previous posts that I never put up any of the pictures of the seals that I have taken since being down here! The seals are out on the ice off base pretty much all the time, and have become somewhat of a daily norm in my world. So with out further adieu:

The seals seem to enjoy sunbathing their stomachs in the sun during the day, and they always seem to have a little smile. 

Last but not least, a very epic shot of myself taken by one of my collogues on the Search and Rescue team during one of our last trainings. We were practicing some multi pitch snow movement on a feature a few miles away from the station called Castle Rock. It is a large rock formation that sticks out of the snow on the island, and allows for some real technical skills to summit. We were just playing around on the side int the snow and ice which climbs up the sides of the formation, but we were visited by one of the helicopters who did a few flybys of us while we were rappelling down the field. 

I hope everyone has a fantastic Christmas and very happy new year!