Some mined ice awaiting liberation of the entombed air bubbles.
Another tent day today making it four straight. Cloud cover and the potential for hazardous weather were not the culprit this time, rather the wind and blowing snow. John came by at his usual 07:00 John Time (06:45 local Earth Time) to let us know we’d be aiming for a 10:00 (09:45) start. However, before 10:00 the winds resumed their boisterous nature from the night and a search day was called off. To give us a break from the yellow hue we have grown accustomed to the past three days, we did some busy work around camp for our eventual move. Garbage and recycling along with items no longer needed were prepped for delivery to Shackleton Camp. We dug the tent pegs out of the ice-hard snow drifts that have surrounded the tents and we filled up our ice buckets after a trip to the ice mine. We suspect we can complete a search of the remaining blue ice in one day and hope to be moved to Amundsen Glacier the day following. When you spend a day, or two, or four, in a tent, you have a lot of time to think and observe. While watching the turbulent steam emanate end over end from the pot as the ice turned to water and began to boil, I realized something. I noticed when we first landed at Wisting that there are thousands of tiny air bubbles trapped in this ancient ice – trapped for tens or hundreds of thousands of years. Now, I don’t look at it simply as melting ancient ice anymore, but as liberating billions of entombed gas molecules. …2017-12-31 Jumble Solutions…
Solutions to initial words with key letters capitalized on the right: SAVECRES > crEvassE DRUMCOM > mcMurdo GASRUTIS > sastRugI SANTEM > AnsmeT
Letters from initial words to unscramble for the final puzzle: E,E,M,R,I,A,T Solution to Final Puzzle: John asked James: “Compared to the previous one, you made this Nunatak Pie *MEATIER*, right?” To which James replied “Yes, two packs of minced beef instead of one.” Hope you enjoyed the puzzle (and pun).
Happy New Year to all! Posted by Scott from Nødtvedt Nunatak on 2018-01-02 at 19:45 local.