Our major goal was to get to the lidar lab by the end of the month. However, this wasn’t an easy task. Since we arrived in winter, we had a large amount of additional training to do before we were allowed to leave the base on our own.
Our training list was: a comms briefing, Antarctic field safety, lab safety training/tour, outdoor safety lecture, and a light vehicle briefing and practical exam. We actually managed to get all of these done with by mid-afternoon on August 31!
We made our first introductory trip to Arrival Heights around dinnertime that night, and gave Arunima and Yingfei a tour of the lab. We also got to see the view of an Antarctic sunset from Arrival Heights, there was no open water in sight either! The last month had open water in the sound which had only recently frozen over; this was worrisome because typically the ice doesn’t melt until December at the earliest.
We’re now starting the refurbishment process for both of the lidar systems, and will keep this blog posted!
