It’s been so cold out lately, and windy. Makes it hard to work. I feel the need to cover my face full time now, and with that, it is a huge challenge to wear glasses; they just fog up right away and then are completely useless. So I often go without glasses, which works for most things. But it is a little harder when I’m trying to see details or read. Then there is the other fun issue… my face masks like to collect my exhaled breath, condensing, and turning into ice themselves. They get cold on the skin as well as stiff and hard to work with. To some degree these can be rotated around the head, but only for the masks that aren’t designed to fit around the nose. No great solution here, my best is to simply bring multiple balaclavas and swap if/when needed. In spite of these techniques, I apparently nipped my nose the other day. A little slightly discolored patch on the left side of my nose; many people couldn’t tell that it was discolored, but I know my nose. And then it started to peel. The new skin underneath appears to be fine, I have sensitivity in my nose, and can’t feel any lack of feeling or function (other than that my nose has never worked that well for smelling). These are the dangers of working in such conditions.

Wind-blown snow obscures the ship as seen from the ice. Photo: Alfred-Wegener-Institut / Esther Horvath (CC-BY 4).

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