The view of Barb’s and Juliane’s tent in whiteout conditions.

Antarctica had a different idea of what we should do today then we did. The wind picked up again during the night and although we were ready to go by 9am we had to postpone our plans until noon in the hopes things would get better. 20knots windspeed is just not fun to be in. At noon conditions didn’t clear up so we spent the day inside the tents again, working, reading, and lots of sleeping. At 4pm we ventured out to meet in the science tent to play scrabble. A lot of fun. Barb and Jim are true masters, Brian and I came along for the ride and tried not to cry in the end after been slaughtered. By now the wind was angrily howling and rattling at the tent so much that I feared it would either fly away or shred to pieces. I was assured though that the tents withhold wind speeds of 100+ MPH. Phew! At 6pm we tried to leave the tent and found ourselves in total whiteout conditions outside. The wind was blowing so much snow that the horizon could not be defined. I mistook the little bit that could be seen from the far away mountains for our food boxes. And our sleeping tents and skidoos looked incredibly small, too small. Without a horizon and reference points, distance is impossible to judge in these conditions. It really feels like you are standing inside a pingpong ball. Ralph had told us about this condition and his experience during our boot camp but it is something entirely different to experience it yourself. It is really cool and scary at the same time. I will never view pingpong balls in the same light again. I’m glad we didn’t go out searching today, it would have been no fun to be caught in this on the ice. The diffuse light also makes it impossible to see the huge snow drifts that have built up around our tents, skidoos, and other obstacles because everything literally is just white without contrast. And so on my way to and from the poo-tent later (after much debate whether to go or not) I tripped over and slipped down different drifts 3 times. Falling isn’t too bad since the landing is sort of soft but with the wind blowing tons of tiny icy crystals in your face it still is not much fun. Pee-bottle (the correct one this time) is definitely coming into use tonight. And again we think about the early explorers Scott, Shackleton, and Amundsen who experienced these conditions before us but were so much less prepared for them than we are. They were truly brave.
Juliane, inside a pingpong ball in Antarctica; Dec. 23, at 7pm.