Well, things at ABN have really got busy! We didn't get a flight in on Monday as hoped for, so it waited until today for the right conditions to bring more folk in.
Actually, on Monday, we had a working bee for the imminent influx, putting up several sleeping tents. We now have a substantial village of some 19 pyramids.
On the science front, the last two days have seen good progress. The firn air drilling has now reached 30m depth, and undertaken the first serious air extraction this evening. The main drilling is also underway, reaching 12.6m this evening (albeit starting in a 4m deep basement). So everyone is feeling very pleased and there a lot of smiles around.
Many of the smiles are on faces of the 6 new folk who flew in today ... Pleased to finally be at ABN after much waiting at Casey. Actually, the ABN skiway was like a real airport today as we no only had our Basler and twin otter flights bringing people in, but we also had a twin otter from Concordia that dropped 5 passengers to connect through to Casey on our returning aircraft!
The adverse flying weather over the last two weeks and slow arrival of the full team has put us behind a little, and there's a lot to be done in coming days, especially for those of us scheduled to change out around NewYear. We will celebrate Christmas, but it will be a (slightly shortened) work day so we can keep things happening. In order to allow today's arrivals to settle (especially chef Jenny) we are delaying our Christmas by a day. This will also allow our final few arrivals, scheduled here tomorrow, the chance to be part of the celebrations.
So, on this Christmas Eve, best wishes to all blog readers for a very happy Christmas. Ours will be white, bright and night less, as well as a little delayed.
