Location: Camp Winter, 86.80S, 54.42E
Elevation: 3151m
Weather: -38C, 4 kts

Today was even calmer than yesterday, with almost no wind at all.  A beautiful day by almost any measure. The work out at the snowpit today was interesting, to use a word.  After a few days with everything working perfectly, Murphy's Law was in effect, and almost all of the equipment was in revolt today.  One of those days. At long last, Zoe and I got one of the ice core drills set up and began collecting the first ice core from Camp Winter.  We hope to collect two cores from this site, and we should still have time to get them done.  We will see if we can get all the science done before the vehicle repairs are done.

In the workshop tent, the mechanics spent the day turning wrenches on Sembla, with a goal of getting her done before dinner.  Ten minutes before dinner time, Sembla backed out of the tent, and Lasse pulled in.  Half way through the repairs!  We celebrated this event last night by watching a James Bond movie (Casino Royale) we borrowed from the South Pole video library.  I hear there is a new one out; let me know if it is any good.

As things progress here at Camp Winter, I have been staying in touch with South Pole about our prospects for the second part of the trip from South Pole to Troll Station.  Most everything is arriving as planned, and as of today there are just 4 pieces of cargo that have not yet made the trip south.  The most interesting arrival today were a set of handheld radios I ordered from the United States about 10 days ago, shortly before I came to Camp Winter.  These are radios we will use to communicate between vehicles, and were chosen specifically to not interfere with the radar equipment we will be using on the main part of the traverse.  I ordered them from Chip at 4my2way.com on 18 November, and they were in the cargo yard at South Pole by
27 November.    Considering the distance traveled and number of time zones
crossed, this is amazingly fast.  This sort of feat is due to the dedication and attention to detail by numerous people in the U.S. Antarctic Program that run the cargo system down here (particularly Michael Davis in McMurdo and Patricia Douglas at South Pole).

Although we try to plan ahead as much as possible, there are always a few last-minute items that come up.  This group of people coordinate and move an impressive amount of cargo around the continent every day and every week; a lack of communication or delayed shipments would cause significant problems and delays for the many science projects happening down here each season.
We are thankful for the well-coordinated cargo handling crew that makes everything work; thanks everyone!

Svein changes batteries on the newly-repaired Sembla, while Einar and Glen attend to a generator. Photo by: Tom Neumann