Well, Memorial Day was a mellow event at the South Pole, but it was good to get some rest. I got an Email message from Elizabeth Felton, the star of the "Live From the South Pole" part of LFA. She's writing a paper for school, about science in Antarctica.

I'm working on an article about frostbite: I'll forward a copy when I'm done. We're lucky that frostbite hasn't been much of a problem here, where the windchill is almost always below the line that says "flesh freezes instantly at this temperature".

Jeff and I launched an ozonesonde balloon today, to get a view of the ozone profile in the stratosphere. I couldn't tell what the total ozone was, though, because the program crashed before computing the value. We'll launch these balloons more often (every three days) once the "ozone hole" forms in August.

AIRDROP is the main topic of conversation at South Polar meals these days: everyone is getting excited: for letters from home, or spare parts, or fresh veggies, or just to see the plane fly by... to know that we're within a thousand feet of complete strangers, even though we can't really see them!

I'll tell you all about it in a couple of weeks... Katy McNitt