Antarctica -- October-November 2010

This is one of the young women who work at this station talking about one of the museum rooms in the building.

The museum, gift shop, and post office are open only during the Southern Hemisphere summmer. It is staffed (this year) by four young women, three British and one German (which seemed and interesting combination, given the reason these British bases were built in the early 1940s -- apparently a relatively large fraction of tourists visiting the Antarctic are German). This is one of the women telling us about the painting on the wall, which was apparently discovered while they were refurbishing the building in the 1990s (to open it as a museum). The painting (directly on the wall) probably dates from the 1950s.

The four women live in a different (much smaller) building (similar to a quonset hut) on the island. Their accomodations are apparently quite limited. One of the first of our small boats to land carried their dirty laundry to the ship, where it was washed and dried by someone in the ship's crew. One of the last of our small boats carring people to the island returned it to them.

(28 Nov 2010)