Well hello everyone and welcome back to my blog!

It has been a little while since my last update, and while I typically have some kind of an outline for my posts beforehand, I have to admit I have not had this blog at the front of mind as of recent. It's not for any reason in particular, but I think my focus has been more centralized on adapting to the changing of season and normalizing a new schedule to maintain sound body and mind, and I forgot to carve out some time specifically for this blog! A problem that will be remedied throughout the coming months.

With all of that being said, we have officially come into the "meat" of the winter season. On Saturday of this week the final flight of the season arrived to deliver some last minute supplies and carry away the few summer staff members that were hanging out to help with the season turnover. The next scheduled flight, excluding any emergencies, will be around the third week of August. So that's it, I'm officially stranded! 

The daylight are hours have also said goodbye for time being. Right now, we may still get an hour of twilight on the horizon for about an hour around 1:00pm, but other than that, its all dark, all the time. While that may seem jarring, it's important to remember that it's a gradual change overall. I liken it to the allegory about the frog in boiling water. When the day to day change is so small, I didn't even really notice how short the days were getting until one day I walked out of the plant at 11:30 am and it was still pitch black outside. The moments I really notice is when I wake up in the morning, especially on my days off when I've allowed myself to sleep in a bit to around 8:00 am and its still pitch black with the widow shades open. It can be a little harder to shake off the morning grogginess and get my body to "wake up," but I was lucky enough to snag a used "happy light," which is just a special light which mimics daylight, that I turn on first thing to help regulate the ol' circadian rhythm. With the darkness has also come a slight shift in weather. We are definitely seeing more regular snowfall, and a just a colder and windier environment all around. The coldest wind temperature so far has hovered around the -60 degree mark, and there have been a handful of "condition 1" designations on base. The system we use to designate how bad the weather outside is uses three tiers of whether severity, with a "condition 3" meaning that it's business as usual, a "condition 2" meaning that there is decreased visibility and the need to bundle up and cover up any exposed skin is absolutely required, and a "condition 1" means that you are to stay inside and not even leave the building you are currently in. These designations are shortened to CON 1, 2, and 3 respectively. 

While most folks will just stay inside and shelter through the worst of storms, being a member of the SAR team requires me to be ready to set up rope lines in the event the weather doesn't subside in a reasonable amount of time, or in the case of our last storm, go out and help to guide or rescue anyone who was unable to make it back to the station from various work centers out on the ice-shelf. Our last little storm came in faster than the weather folks were able to predict, and this caused one of our airfield workers to not quite make it back to station in time before the worst of the weather rolled in, which dropped the visibility to a few feet causing him to accidentally drive his truck slightly off the snow packed road between the airfield and the station, which in turn caused him to get VERY stuck. He was able to radio in his location and our team was spun up and we headed out to go get him. Our SAR vehicles are outfitted with radar and FLIR systems that allow us to navigate without the ability to actually see where we are driving. We were able to get to him before the truck even had time to cool down and get him back to station without any further incident, and the fleet operations team was able to recover the vehicle after the storm had passed. 

As far as the real reason I am down here, the work, things have been just cruising along without too much drama. Lately my time is being spent updating processes to current industry standards, as well as trying and figure out how to better optimize seasonal turnover so that some semblance of continuity can occur between operators in the plant. A much more challenging task when every 6-12 months you have a brand new person filling the position typically. As long as I do what is in my power to leave this place better than when I found it, I will have completed my personal goals. There is a long list of long term systemic issues which have occurred in this plant over the last 10-15 years, which haven taken a lot of time and effort to start ironing out. It makes me happy to see some support and push for updates based on some of my observation and recommendations, but I am quickly learning how hard long term changes can be to implement when you know you will not be able to see most of them through after your contract has expired. This, I think, is probably one of the hardest things to combat in ANY position here on station. This also doesn't even take into account the bigger contract turnover with the station as a whole. For some quick background, The National Science Foundation contracts the operations of the station to a large private company who in turn provides all of the station maintenance and support for the research that occurs here. That large 8 billion dollar contract is ending and turning over to possibly a new company, depending on what companies bid on it. Bottom line is, between the small and large scale seasonal changes that continually occur here, it's no surprise that implementing lasting improvements is an uphill battle! 

Ok, enough of the "inside baseball,' personal bias filled, psuedo-manifesto-esque rambling. I did however warn you all at the top of this post that I did not have an outline, so a babbling stream of consciences is what you're going to get I guess!

Let's see, what else it there to report on. You would think considering how long it has been since my last post, there would be a wealth of things to talk about. The winter season definitely has a different vibe on station. Things slow down quite a bit without all of the scientific research in need of support, and with such a reduced population, currently 269 people, overall demand on the station is reduced. One fun thing is the addition of a "happy light room," which is an unused dorm room that is outfitted with a lot of very bright lights, bean bags, and comfortable chairs which you can use to "soak up some sun." I have found its a great place to hang out from time to time with a book. 

I have had some requests for some pictures and explanations of some simple things like what my dorm room actually looks like, as well how the food and galley works. I am in the process of obtaining some representative photos and will be writing a dedicated post specifically covering those topics here very soon. So stay tuned!

With that, I will end this post here with a few photos taken by a fellow SAR team member out on a few of our various training exercises, starring yours truly. I hope everyone reading is doing well!

Photos by Cullen Welch, www.cullenwelch.com