Concordia Base Log
By:
Adrianos Golemis, ESA research MD
Time: L-30 (October 2013)
Temperature: -
Week: -
Sunlight: -
Morale: Good
Temperature: -
Week: -
Sunlight: -
Morale: Good
Log
Entry #5 – Enter the Brave
Next stop in my autumn
sojourns was Brest, or to be precise, a place close-by, named Plouzane. These
were the headquarters of the French Polar Institute
“Paul-Emile Victor” (IPEV) – our training for the upcoming experience was
about to begin. It was in Brest that I first met my future winter comrades, at
least “the French connection”: Olivier, Cecile, Pierre, and Julien. Xavier and
Bruno would join us later.
We resided for
one week in a complex of small summer bungalows, which was quite funny as an
experience. We were not alone, in fact every French polar explorer that would journey
to the Arctic, Antarctic, or Subantarctic in the next months was there! We
dined every night in a restaurant nearby, crossing the picturesque lanes of
Plouzane, to hear the ones that had ventured to the poles before share stories
from Concordia Station and Dumont D’Urville in Antarctica, or from the lonely
islands of Kerguelen, Amsterdam and Crozet, just north of the Antarctic Polar
Circle. All of this with the luxury of some good wine, a tradition which a
Greek feasting with a hundred French greatly appreciated!
During the days
we received a broad spectrum of seminars, concerning scientific activities,
safety, and living conditions in our next destinations. But it was not all
about lecturing: One of the most exciting moments was firefighter training
(Picture #9)! You wouldn’t want your shelter to be burned down in Antarctica,
when the next time you’ll be able to catch a plane was in 9 months or so!
As you can
perhaps imagine, in Plouzane the weather was rainy. But the harsh rocky
coastline of Bretagne was breath-taking and I felt serenity every time i caught
a glimpse of it among the green pastures of the countryside.
Pictures #7-10: Top Left – People gather to IPEV for a training session
Top Right – Bretagne scenery Bottom Left – Firefighter drill!
Bottom Right – Tasting “space food” at Cologne
Top Right – Bretagne scenery Bottom Left – Firefighter drill!
Bottom Right – Tasting “space food” at Cologne
After Bretagne, I began a small tour of central Europe, to receive
training for the numerous experiments I would have to conduct once at
Concordia. The feeling of always being in a rush was prominent throughout… A
lot of things to do, you start the day with a list of ten points and even though
you finish five, you go to bed with a list of eleven! That is perhaps why I
revived my bad habit of writing (the most important things to do) on my hand. I
remember one day working late and totally forgetting to book a hotel in
Brussels, my next destination, and the train was leaving in 2 hours! Luckily my
friend Leonidas (a fitting name for a fan of Belgian chocolate too) was able to
put me up and we had a great time indeed.
Brest, Lyon,
Dijon, Cologne, Brussels, Montpelier… I was really glad to have a few free days
at Lyon, which I explored with my girlfriend, Judith. Watching the twin
rainbows from her window was a moment full of optimism and hope about the
difficulties of the next year, during which we would inevitably be apart. The
city lived up to my expectations, after all its name originates from Lugdunum,
Latin for “The Hill of Light”.
It was at my
next stop, Brussels, that I learned how to conduct a sleep study, which is not
as bad an experience as it looks (Picture #12)! At Dijon, after training, I had
the chance to walk through the
backstreets of the old city before catching the train to yet another stop (Picture
#13).
Picture #11: Twin rainbows at Lyon –
Picture #12: Wiring up for science
Picture #13: Streets of Dijon
Picture #13: Streets of Dijon
At Montpelier I
was taught together with Olivier how to test the quality of the water that we
will be using at Concordia, where a recycling system is at work. But the most
interesting part of the preparation was at Cologne and ESA’s European Astronaut
Centre (EAC), a place I revisited 2 months after completing my summer
internship there.
First and
foremost, we encountered the Italian side of our Antarctic winterover group.
Well, Italian, with a Russian blend! Tommaso, Giorgio, Paride, Daniele, Tindari
and Igor joined us for some team-building and get-to-know-each-other time.
After all, we would spend one year in isolation together… On top of everything
else, we cooked a gourmet dinner to test our cooperation and had a live
teleconference with our predecessors at Concordia (Picture #13). Loredana and
Susan of EAC were very helpful and innovative in the whole procedure.
A second
shopping frenzy would follow in the last days before departure, as I had to
prepare my backpack for the cold. The supplies we had sent to Concordia with
the Astrolab, the ship that would
carry them from Tasmania, would only arrive two months after us. To survive in
between, I invested in a good hat, following Igor’s advice – Jud’s gift, a warm
bandana for my neck, proved much more useful than I ever expected... With only
a few days left before the “launch”, I would soon return to Greece, to meet
friends and spend time with family. Partings were always hard, especially the
last kiss on a cloudy afternoon at the train station of Lyon Pardieu, but “I would be back in a few days”, as I
liked to say.
While excited
for the upcoming adventure, and finally very confident about the next year, I couldn’t
help but notice that time was flying by quickly, devouring the last chances to
share moments with people I loved, robbing me of possibilities and chances that
I tried to grasp in every day.
Pictures #14-16: Top – Conversing with our predecessors at Concordia [Credits: ESA]
Bottom Left – Team-building exercise at EAC [Credits: ESA]
Bottom Right – Catching the last train from Cologne…
Bottom Left – Team-building exercise at EAC [Credits: ESA]
Bottom Right – Catching the last train from Cologne…
“You are brave”, said an old acquaintance at
Cologne. “You are all quite brave to dare spend a year over there”.
I would
partially disagree. People might think of winterover crews as the likes of Ernest
Shackleton, Robert Falcon Scott, Roald Amundsen and the other great pioneers of
the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. We, however, enjoy a multitude of
luxuries that they could not even imagine to possess in their times and expeditions to the Far South. Our only
challenge by comparison will be isolation, confinement and monotony.
Here’s song of
adventure, nostalgia and affection, dedicated to them pioneers, and also to us:
Still, their mission in Antarctica was to survive. Our mission is to excel. ҉
Twitter: @Astrovenator
No comments:
Post a Comment