May 5, 2016

Progress on a beautiful day

The Pistenbully with a Westa snow blower excavates two buried vehicles.


This day has been beautiful in a double sense. The weather is absolutely splendid and the weather forecast is good as well.
On top of that, we managed to get all water systems going. This might seem a trivial thing, but it really improves comfort of life in camp. We now have a dishwasher and a wash room with wash basins with hot and cold water. We have restrooms and a shower and we have a kitchen sink. The main dome infrastructure is now complete.
Today Kaitlin collected snow for drinking water and installed beds in the weatherports.
Malte and Christoph completed the cargoline and helped Joel, who was making trenches for electrical cables, with the laying of cables.
Hans Christian, Christian and J.P. were in the plumbing business and fixed the main water supply, while Sepp and Joel fixed the drinking water supply.
Chris had a “field day” (no pun intended) as he unmounted the blade on Pistenbully 2 and mounted our brand new snow blower. He immediately proceeded to excavate our two buried Flexmobils.
Sarah made us a lovely Mexican dinner. All in all, it was a very good day.

What we have done today:

  1. Excavated for cables along NE side of camp.
  2. All cargo now sorted and arranged in cargo line.
  3. Laid out 180 m electrical cable.
  4. After considerable work and troubleshooting, the cooks snow melter is working and the main snow melter is working.
  5. Dishwasher, shower, washroom and restrooms now working.
  6. Mounted new snow blower on PB 2 with a spectacular result.
  7. Beds are ready in weatherports.

Ad. 4: We set the cooks snow melter outside yesterday. It had a hard time keeping warm during the night. It turned out that one of the heating elements was broken and the insulation was not good enough. A heating element was replaced and insulation improved. It now works fine. The water lines for the main snow melter were frozen. We took the lines inside for thawing and drying. The water pump had succumbed to the harsh treatment of the past days, so we reconfigured the pump system and installed a new pump. We also added a few extra valves to the system. After this operation, the water system works fine.
Ad.5: Doing the dishes is now a pleasure. Hans Christian inaugurated the shower and came out very clean. With washbasins and running water, camp hygiene improves.

Weather today: Sunny and clear. Temp. -21ºC to -33ºC, Wind 10 kt from WSW. Visibility: To horizon.

FL, J.P. Steffensen