27 June 2008 Water of Life

June 27, 2008 – Friday – Water of Life

Wind, wind, go away…

We spent the day huddled inside Sat Camp, hiding from the wind. We have had sustained 15 – 20 mph winds from the north, so, no blimp flying and very few measurements.

I have had numerous emails about the water situation up here. Questions like, "Where does your drinking water come from”, or "How do you get water for shower”, etc. So, I would like to take this opportunity to explain how we get our water.

It just so happens we are in luck when it comes to fresh water. We are sitting on top of 2 ½ miles of fresh clean ice. In fact, the Greenland Ice sheet is the largest body of ice (solid water) in the Northern Hemisphere! So, all we have to do is turn all that ice and snow into liquid water…right?

Well, actually it takes quite a lot of effort to get from the snowpack to the water tap. First, a dozer with a bucket has to drive to the "snow mine” and get a bucket load of fresh clean snow. The snow mine is very close to the machine shop and the Big House and is off limits to walking or driving (for obvious reasons). The dozer then dumps the bucket of snow into a hopper that sits right next to the generators. The generators provide power for camp and as they run they produce a lot of heat; that heat melts the snow into liquid water.

Once we have water we can then transport it to the various buildings. The "pig” is a large water tank (so named because the old tank that was used was in the shape of a pig and painted pink by the staff) on a sled that is pulled by an tracked all terrain vehicle. The vehicle pulls the Pig to the Big House where it pumps the water into a 500 gallon tank. This process must be repeated at least 2 times per day! That means that the Big House alone uses 1000 gallons of water per day!

This leads me to the camp’s emphasis on water conservation for the 30 of us up here. Showers are allowed once every 7 days and we are asked to only use a couple minutes worth of water. So, you turn the water on to get a first rinse, turn it off while you soap and shampoo, and back on again to rinse! Then, you are done…wait to repeat the process in 7 days!

My lovely wife asked me a question about my gaining/losing weight up here on the Ask the Team forum of this website a few days ago. I was surprised at the answers I was able to give her! You can learn more about my weight and eating habits at http://www.polartrec.com/node/4546 . Some of you might not be very happy with me after you read it!

Speaking of eating; Jin (Georgia Tech), originally from southern China, brought a special snack here with her for us to try. We were sitting around Sat Camp today and she pulled out a bag with Chinese writing all over it. Someone asked her what it was she was eating and she replied, "Dried Squid”! I dubbed it Squid Jerky because it looked like white beef jerky strips, although it did NOT taste like beef jerky! It wasn’t too bad, pretty fishy though, and slightly salty. I am glad I didn’t mind the taste because I think I can still smell it on my breath four hours later!

Food update:

Lunch: BLT (Bacon, Lettuce, Tomato) sandwiches, tofu patties, meat stew, veggie stew, and salad

Dinner: Grilled Tuna steaks with a pineapple salsa, grilled potato wedges, steamed cauliflower, salad and lemon raspberry cake. Oh, and homemade tartar sauce which I slathered over EVERYTHING!

Stay Warm!!