Black Island Black Out

Black Island is place about eight hours from McMurdo heading South. On it is where all our communications are located. Cable, Internet, phones. All satellite connections are there and if it goes down, we're in the dark. Well you'll never guess what happened. . . . .

Yep, it went down. The techs knew it was coming and had gone out on a traverse to fix the generator problem. All was well, but the second they touched the station on their return, communications dropped off. Everyone kind of sat in front of the computer and stared at the error screen that popped up. "What do I do?" someone whispered to the person next to them who just shrugged. "How do I update my status?" a slightly panicky voice asked and suddenly the true direness of our situation set in.

For four days we were on emergency communications only. No outside phone calls, no emails, no cable connections. We still got BBC through Scott Base so we learned of Osama's death and other details of the outside world, but that was our only news channel while others were static (Do you know how long it's been since I've seen just static on the TV. I was surprised it still existed. I thought with the creation of cable it was all but extinct).

Apparantly the generator connection to the batteries was damaged and no one knew till it went down so the team had to head back to Black Island the next day. Like zombies, people wandered around the halls aimlessly trying to figure out what to do without internet. Lists were posted with options people might not have thought about (reading a book, going to the library, finding the library, have a face to face conversation with someone on base) support groups were formed, and on base hotlines were set up. Suddenly I saw people I had never seen before, and people were talking to each other. A photographic moment I missed. The lack of communications did not really bother me, as you well know I am not an avid facebooker or phone caller. It is kind of nice not to have a dedicated calling time because when things go done in Antarctica no one back home panics. One community member has told friends and family that we don't even have phones here. I haven't gone that far, but I wasn't one of the people worrying that family was worrying because they had not checked in in the last three days. See, no news is good news.

Just thought you should know things are okay now and we're fully up and connected. Sometimes there is a really good reason I don't call home like . . . . . . . I can't.