An update from the arctic. Things have slowed down here adventure wise. What with MATlab and GUISDAP computer analysis all day long we havent had much time to go out. We also had a huge report to hand it.

Bjorndalen BBQ- For Margarete's birthday we went to Bjorndalen cabin again. Malibu is now completely broken, so my only method of transport was by sitting on a sledge attached to Dayle's scooter. It was shit scary but such good fun! My bum was very numb afterward.
We had an awesome BBQ. James found a random hole outside and decided to turn it into a chair. Two hours later two very cute and angry artic foxes came around wondering why his ars was in thier house! The were so fun and we played with them throwing snowballs to them. I think they just wanted thier hole back but they seems freindly enough.
On the journey back the sledge linkage broke, I was maybe too fat for it. The scooter kept on going, the sledge dug into the snow and I went flying 3 meters and found myself confused crumpled over my rucksack in the middle of the scooter track! Luckily it was just at the beguinning of town so I could walk back from there.

This weekend we went out for a nice pizza and a few drinks. A few turned into many as it always does and I eventually got home at 6am. Its so freaky, its light 24/7. You look outside and think its only 5pm, when its really 2am, my sleep patarn is completely screwed!

Last night Ben and Ruth (who are Jewish) calibrated a massive Passover feast. Yes its late but they just got the food sent from their parents. It was really nice to be invited and be a part of it. We didn't do the whole 6 hour ceremony we did the shortened version but we still had the bitter herbs in tears, unleven bread with horseradding for suffering, a lamb (paper mache) and lots more symbolic things. They sang the traditional sonds in hebrew and then provided a really wonderful meal. Afterwards we tried the traditional 100% proof plum brandy. My god that was good stuff, but resulted in another lost night though. Pics will follow.
Unfortunately my camera is completely broken so none will be mine and they will be harder to get hold of.

Easter Holidays

The holidays started with a lovely trip to Templefjord. We dropped a group of friends going on a 6 days skiing trip. The weather was lovely and the drive nice and brisk. The view in templefjord was beautiful when we got there. Unfortunately hundreds of tourists had scared of any polarbears around. There was a ship in the ice, the one they dragged in in January and destroyed all the sea ice for!
A great day out.

Snowboarding. I went snowboarding many times during the break. A few times just practicing where the kids learn to ski, and once in Fardalen, a huge slope you need to drive up with a scooter after. I taught Michie and Dayle how to snowboard, it was so funny, see the video!

Malibu broke down though, there isnt enough vlotage going to one of the cylinders, we got it working but its a tad crippled and its top speed seems limited to 60kmph, looks like templefjord was too much for it :-(

Easter day we bought loads of kinder eggs. As well as that we had a HUGE brunch where everyone contributed something, in the end we had enough that it couldnt fit on two tables and we ate untill bursting and still had loads left.
After brunch I went with a bunch of skiiers up larsbreen to snowboard. BIG MISTAKE, they went up the glacier with ease which I was sprinting through thick snow killing myself to stand up. At the top I lost a screw from my bindings and so my feet were loose. I had no control, I was shattered and so basically fell face first all the way down the icy glacier, I wanted to die, but I didnt.

Unfortunately lectures have started again. Moan is back, I like him, he can teach well. We are also leanring MatLAB which is useful so we can analyse ourselves the data we got at EISCAT.

This week has been great!

26/03/09 - My snowboard arrived, it looks pretty and is nice and shiny. I cant wait to take it out. Unfortunately the weather is too bad to do it today.

27/03/09 - Dayle and I have successfully rebuilt Malibu's engine again! And once again is alive!
Unfortunately on its maiden voyage the weather was so bad. There were huge drifts of snow which meant you couldn't see more than 2 meters in front of you. At one point Dayle suddenly stopped, I didn't so much and I bumped into the back of Dayle's scooter shattering the hood. DAMN!!!!
After 3 more hours of frantically gluing and tension strips we reconstructed the hood, all cosmetic, no structural damage, it just looks like Malibu has a broken nose now, Dayle isn't happy with me.

28/03/09 - Tested out m snowboard. It works fine, I just realised my boots are huge and only just fit in the bindings, I need to adjust them to fit into them properly. There is so much snow the board just digs in about 40cm and when you fall over snow goes everywhere, but its fun.

30/03-02/04/09 - We are doing experiments at the massive EISCAT radar facility this week. We have complete control of both the 32m and 42m dishes. We can control the directions and spin the 32m disk wherever we want. We can choose the pulse codes, duration, power output, everything. The facility and computer systems to control them are colossal, you can see where all our scientific funding goes here, and it's all in our hands, mew ha ha ha! The facility used up to 35% of the whole power output of the island!
It is extremely interesting you can see detailed structures of the ionosphere. After running our first experiment for 5 hours we have to go out to the static 42 dish and spend an hour shoveling snow from it, yes there was a lot and yes it really can effect the sensitivity of the experiments.

AVALANCHE, there was a big avalanche right between town and our barracks! Scary. Jenifer was at the bottom on the road when it happened and had to run screaming out of the way. Luckily no one was caught in it. It completely covered the road. The next day the police chief blow up the remaining cornises on the top of the peaks to stop more, but with little success. Now is probibly not the time to metion that a local died last week in an avalanche across the fjord on a scotter trip, the town was in mourning for a good few days.

We went on a small scooter trip to warm Malibu back into action across the bay. There is a small settlement jokingly called "Advent City". The view of the sun was beautiful and we found an old sail boat half burried in the ice.

Michie and I went on a snowboard session today. It was pretty much his first time. We went to where the school kids learn to ski. It was such good fun. I managed a whole run switching from side to side without falling over! Michie and I felt very happy with ourselves afterward a good session.
So we went out and had the most awesome Pizza in the world.

More mines, cabin fever and BBQ's

19/03/09 We went on a road trip to a different mine today, mine 6 the latest to be abandoned, by the looks of it in the 80's or early 90's. It was much bigger scale and concrete than the mine 2, still freaky though. At the top all the dogs down the fjord in the kennels started howling together like wolves. It was very freaky.

20/03/09 Our first week day off in ages, unfortunately not for me. I agreed to be in charge of friday gathering so it was my job to buy the booze. Ash nicely agreed to join me. After we went for a walk in the glorious sunlight. The fjord is so beautiful in the sun.

21/03/09 - Bjorndalen. Me and a group of 6 others decided to stay at the cabin in Bjorndalen this weekend. It was where we saw the polarbear tracks last week. Jorgen and I decided to go early to warm it up. We "borrowed" around 50kg of coal from next to the power plant, aparently there is a special deal with the company or something but it felt a bit dodgy to me. The cabin was lovely, just freezing cold. Even 3 hours later when the others finlly arived the cabin had only got to about 0 degrees with a constant fire. It was also very smoky.
Despite that it was really good fun. We had a cozy meal together and a good laugh. I got to test out my new sleeping bag finnally, it was amasing, I loved it, I never wanted to come out.

The weather was glorious the next day. Half of the others went skiing (the norwegian half!), the others of us went on a walk in the beautiful surroundings. We thaught we saw a polarbear but it turned out to just be a yellowish iceberg.

When I got back to the barracks I got a big supprise. The others were just about to a BBQ so I jumped on that bandwagon. I think it actually worked better than at home, the BBQ's burnt at the proper speed. Of course I managed to burn my mouth at -24 degrees though!

25/03/09 - Got really close to another friendly reindeer today. Also I got a reply to go for an interview at Thales today, my first non rejection reply! Wohoo!
We also started dismantelling Malibu again today, we got the engine out and will start on the hard part of reparing tommorow. There is no spark so we think the coil (the part we snapped a bolt of last time) has broken, not an easy job to fix.

Polarbear tracks, Flamable gods, Russians and explosions

10-15/03/09 Today we decided to enter for the great annual Sledge race. In the process of building it we had a tiny accident. Well Dayle decided to use the angle grinder next to freshly cut fuel lines and we may have set the sledge on fire. Luckily due to quick action it was out shortly but not before me cutting my back and wrist dragging the flaming sledge out.


12/03/09 The sun is here, at last! I haven't seen it for over 2 months. Today we went for a small scooter trip. We just went 45 mins away down the road. On the way back we found polar bear tracks, really fresh ones. Apparently we were a few hours too late the police had to scare it off earlier.

It was great the sea had loads of icebergs in it.

13/03/09 - The sledge is finally coming together we thought of the name, the inflammable god! I'm so happy how its turned out.

I had an ipiphany today. The radar diagnostics course we have been doing he finnaly clicked today. I now understand the process of sampling and decoding signals and the complex mathematics involved. It was so refreshing, I now get it, wohoo!

14/03/09 - The day of the big sledge race! So many people turned up. There were 18 different sledges participating and the entire town came to see them crash and burn. It was so much fun. Ours was an epic tragedy.
We turned around and the others fell off and everyone laughed, however we weren't the last, one sledge was 2 seconds slower, so we didn't even get the wooden spoon.

15/03/09- Barrentzberg and tragedy. We decided to take Malibu on a larger trip. He went great all the 2 hour trip there. The weather was so beautiful, couldn't have been a better day.
Barrentzberg was crazy, it was like going back in time 50 years and heading to soviet Russia. As you can see there were statues of
Lennen and amasing views. We had brekfast including loads of interesting russian food but it was really good. Nearlly all the buildings are abandoned as they are slowly closing down the mining operations.
It was full of soot and smoke and steam appearing from every crack, including the ones in all the walls.

On the way back there was a horrific disaster! Malibu died. Down a hill there was two distinct bangs like a car backfiring and it never started again. I think the piston has gone again, bugger! We dragged it back all the way, nearly two hours. The view was great, it was just hard to enjoy it being towed rather that speeding along under my own steam. We will have to drag Mailbu to the sea garage open him up and get a post mortum, please cross your fingers for us!

It's Alive, ALIVE!!

See for yourself the blossom of all Dayle's and my work! A weeks work and its was so worth it to hear this glorious noise!

Dayle, Malibu and I

25/02/09 - Malibu is ours! We got custody of our own (not fully functioning scooter today). After 3 hours we managed to get it to the sea Garage. In the arduous process dragging her back a magic Eskimo man managed to get her started, well on one of the two cylinders.
When we opened her up we founds why the other wasn't firing! Can you see the problem? That's right pistons arn't meant to have gaping big holes in them!
26-27th/02/09 We found the manual for our scooter in the internet, printed it out and had it bound. Dayle and I then spent the next two days until 11pm every night taking her apart piece by piece. TO get out a piston you literally have to dismantle EVERYTHING in the snowmobile!
With a lot of swearing and WD40 we now have the piston out and a lot of parts.
To get a new piston we have been quoted £200. We are going to try and find it cheaper on the net. Or steal another engine from an identical broken scooter, there are a few lying around.

Friday night we had the gathering again at UNIS and it spilled over to the barenzpub just up the road, good fun!

28/02/09 - Today is the last day you can travel to the Balterdalen cave since as of March its a no scooter zone. Lisa on the picture to the left in the middle very kindly lent me her scooter. It was so nice, it went beautifully and damn fast, I hope Malabu works like that when she lives again!
Unfortuately after 5 hours of searching we didnt find it :-( . We did however chase some reindeer for a while, they didnt realise that running down the scooter track wasnt the best way to escape scooters!
On the way back Dayle let loose with the gas and went airborne at one point. Ill tell you what 80 on a snowmoble is damn fast!

We later on had a karioke party at Dayle and Lisa's barrack. As usuall it started slowly as people got more enibrated the more people started to sing. I was shattered though so I had to bow my head and go to bed early.

01/03/09 The day isnt over yet but I just went snowboarding again with Laura. We were sharing Pirka's board and she was just as bad as me so it was fun. Cant wait until my own board arrives now!!!