Sun., July 6th: Bye Bye Nemo... :(

yep yep!

View from atop the 45 meter Swiss Tower taken by Craig Beals.

Looking down at me, Katrine, and Steve.

Looking SW at Satellite Camp. Lower/middle right it the NOAA observation building.

Zoom in of the main camp. In the middle is the Big House and right behind that is Tent City (yellow tents). The recreation port (cycling bikes and two couches and a tv for watching movies) is to the right of Tent City (black, long hotdog looking thing).

Well the tethersonde system has had a pretty good run...but last night around 11pm it may have seen the end of its career (well at least for Summit). We had a successful ascent, but when I began to bring in Nemo, the winch started to cry and moan out in angony. Initially I was in shock because I always thought Nemo would be the one to go, not the winch. I slowed the descent to about a quarter of the speed and then just stopped it all together. Once again I tried to bring Nemo down, but even full speed (level 6) was only about first gear (level 1).

I radioed into Katrine (UC-Irvine) and Craig (Montana) who ran out to Balloon Island (aka the tethersonde launch pad), which is about 70 meters to the east of Satellite Camp. We decided it was definitely time to get the Bad Boy Buggy and bring Nemo and the rest of the equipment inside. So I ran to get the Bad Boy Buggy from the main camp (about .65 miles) and let's just say it wasn't fun in 16 knots winds with my damn 500 pound boots. Fotunately I made it to the Buggy and back to Satellite Camp. By that time, Katrine and Craig had gotten Nemo back down to the ground. So we wresteled him under the power line and we're off to the balloon shed (were we store Nemo when the winds are too strong or when he needs a refill on Helium).

The winds were about 7 m/s at the surface and up to about 50 meters (from the sounding data), however, the winds were about 18 m/s around 525m. This was just too much for the winch, which had given its all for the last 6 weeks. And plus...a few hours later I read the operating manual and it said, "Operating temperature from 0C to 50C". So basically we have been operating under that threshold for six weeks. I'm talking all the way to -24C. We have a DC-8 flying over us on Tuesday and they're taking all sorts of measurements (most of them we also have at Summit Camp). Hopefully Willow the mechanic can fix the winch tomorrow so that we have the tethersonde system ready for the fly over on Tuesday. Craig and I took the cover off of it and unfortunately it looks as though the motor is burned out...booooo. Craig said Willow's body language did not look too promising when he explained what happened. Oh well...we'll see.

So I am still sleeping amazingly in my tent. From all the work and all of the trekking through the snow, when you hit the sheets (or sleeping bag in our case), it takes not time to doze off. It is great!

Today was leftovers day...which wasn't a bad thing at all. You see I love leftovers...even in high school I would bring leftovers for lunch...nothing like a steak sandwich when your friends have PB&J and slimey lunch meat! So for lunch I had steak, mashed potatoes, vegetarian shepard's pie, and zucchini. Mmmmmmmmmmm it was delicious! For dinner, some of the Satellite Camp group (Craig, Bonnie, Neil, and me) made an Italian meal: spaghetti with mushrooms, onion, garlic, artichoke, meatballs, garlic bread, and for dessert (drum roll please!)...very very very VERY VERY good warm apple pie! Mmmmmmmmmmmmm hmmmmmmmmm!

Only three days left (we leave Thursday around 8am). I will miss this place in a way and all of the great people from all over the world that I have met, but it will be nice to take regular showers and throw the toilet paper into the toilet!

Smell-oh-Meter: 4.5...pretty steady

Current Weather:
Temperature: 12F
Wind Chill: -6F

Take Care!