Halloween and Such

a beautiful evening on the porch

It's been a busy time here supporting the newly arrived science groups and keeping the station running. As you probably know, the ship has not been able to tie to the pier without the proper mooring pins in place. The ship needs to be securely in place to pump off fuel for station.

Two months ago, we were suppose to off-load fuel for the station to keep the generators running, which give us the electricity and heat we need. No matter, the station mechanic estimated we had enough fuel to last until Christmas- the plans were in place to fix the mooring problem well before that. The fuel level indicated in the tanks did not factor in the amount on wax buildup there has been in the reserves over the years.

About one month ago, the entire station shutdown- no power, no heat, no noise. Power was restored after a half hour. The problem was found to be that wax clogged the fuel filters and cut off fuel flow to the generators. Now, we had a real problem.

After reassesing the fuel situation, the mechanic found that we had less time than he thought. We had until about mid to end of November until the waxy fuel was too much to try and send through the filters. We need that boat to tie up soon.

So as you can imagine, the bollards have been the hot topic of conversation. One person even dressed up as one for Halloween.

Today, the ship has returned with the bollards on its way to put in a field camp on Petermann Island. We offloaded the infamous bollards and will install them tomorrow. The sites have been prepped, so hopefully all goes well and we will have fresh fuel on Saturday.

Pose with the Bollard Celebrity

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Some good porch time after work

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I was a dead guy with an old-timey dead-guy beard