We used time today like we were living on another planet – one with a day more like 30 hours long. First, we woke to the familiar hiss of snow sand on the back of the tent, and at this point we’re able to say, oh, it’s about 22 knots outside, which means we’re not going out. So I slipped back down into my bag and didn’t resurface until my sleeping night had been 11 hours long. Minako went to the science tent, called her family, read and watched a movie. I joined her for the end of the movie (Sound of Music!) around lunchtime, which was a late lunch given our late rising time. Then we started to notice that the winds had died down slightly, and Jim came to tell us we were going out to search! So we headed out at 3pm, went to our line and systematically searched, then reccy searched, and covered lots of ground. It was still fairly windy, so we made sure to eat lots of snacks and stay active to stay warm. We noticed the sun moving lazily around in its path, and then getting low in the west, like a beautiful sunset. We returned home AT 10 PM, making it basically a full day of searching. We came back with 41, several carbonaceous, and now putting our total over 200, which made us all very happy. After a nice dinner of white fish and vegetables in a Thai soup, with a dessert for me of pringles and warm coconut milk (don’t judge me, it was cold), we’re going to crawl into bed and hope for 1 – winds to stay down and 2 – just one extra hour of sleeping in before going out for possibly our last day of searching. We’re happy living here in the other planet of Elephant Moraine, where we can make our own schedule, since the sun is always up and the temperatures about the same. But soon enough, we’ll be yanked back into a McMurdo schedule and a 24 hour day. We’ll make the most of it while we can! – Jani 17 January 2017