Hello Everyone, Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Bruce "Chip" Daley, and I am a third grade teacher from Las Vegas, Nevada. A friend of mine, Paul Smith, is an Australian research scientist from Melbourne, Australia. Last year, Paul was assigned for a four month stay at the Australian research station, Casey, in Antarctica. From Antarctica, Paul wrote letters of his Antarctic experiences to my third grade class. These letters are available via anonymous ftp from ftp.nevada.edu in the pub/ccsd/ANTARCTICA1 directory. I will post the most recent letters from Paul on ftp.nevada.edu in the pub/ccsd/ANTARCTICA2 directory. Paul has returned to Antarctica, and so I will again post his letters. As part of an agreement between Paul and myself to post the letters, I agreed not to post his e-mail address. This was not because Paul is not the friendly type (quite the opposite), but rather because it would be impossible for him to answer the volume of electronic mail from teachers and students around the world, and still attend to his research studies. Hope you enjoy the letter.... Bruce Daley chipper@nevada.edu -------------------- Date: Sat, 11 Dec 1993 17:01:26 +1000 From: Paul R Smith Sat. 11-12-93 G'day everyone, Icebird sailed away yesterday afternoon with the round trippers and some of the '93 winterers so things are starting to get back to normal around here. We've just finished saturday duties which means cleaning up around the station for a couple of hours. My exciting task was to help move the chairs and tables out of the mess and polish the floor, so you see it's not all skiing and watching the fauna and going on jollys. Just 90% of the time. Speaking of jollys I'm already lining up my first one. I go on field training tomorrow for 3 days with our FTO (field training officer) Luke Vanzino, who we call Fangio. Something to do with the way he drives quads (4 wheel motor bikes). Anyway some of you might remember from last year what field training was about. Basically it's camp out in the snow a remote 800m from the station and try to survive for three days on take-away the chef prepares (none of this ration pack stuff), while going abseiling, climbing and learning how to survive out there. The voyage down was pretty good, nice weather most of the way and we made it in on time after leaving 2 days late. Best of all I didn't have to go through King Neptune again. I think the ABC crew with Andrew Denton copped it the worst, but that's what celebraties are for. For most of a sea journey the view is pretty routine...water in every direction as far as the eye can see. But as you get further south you start to see clumps of it floating around, often referred to as icebergs. It took most of us by surprise how far north the first berg was, 54 S from memory, and the iceberg sweep had only been announced that afternoon so 10 people went running to put bets down for it to cross the bow within the next hour or two. Cheating since no bergs are supposed to be in view when you bet. A few days later we hit the pack ice which had blown out to sea and set the cruise control to 1/2 knot. This was where we'd find out if Icebird could make it all the way in or if we'd have to fly off by helicopter. Fortunately we did make make it through since there was a lot of stuff to get ashore, such as fuel for the power generators. It was still a buzz to get a 5 minute flight from ship to shore. There were a lot of familiar faces when I arrived too since most of the winterers I met last year were still around. As for the weather, since that's usually the first thing everybody asks, it's gone from a clear sunny morning to grey and overcast with snow showers but not too much wind. The wind, more than anything else, is the deciding factor for outdoor activities. The temp is somewhere round -4 C last I heard. I'm now comfortably set up in a room in the red shed (main accom- odation building) with a very nice view of the bay, of which I can see very little because of snow. I've set up my PC in here but there's no network through here yet (if ever?) so I have to send this from the Science building. Work (yes I have done some) is going well. Didier (physicist) and Lloyd (engineer) are showing Miro, Dale and myself what's been happening with the various experiments. I'll tell you more about that soon. I better head back and post this, talk to you after field training... Paul