Sunday, June 15, 2008

Midway approaches

Well, June 21st marks the half-way point of the winter, so I naturally chose a book on the battle of Midway from the small library of World War II history that one of my uncles sent me during the summer. It has been really nice to read so much on a subject that I find fascinating, and I definitely have gotten some good new information out of these books.

In a similar line of investigation, I showed the film "Flags of Our Fathers" last night for the Sunday Select Cinema feature presentation. Next week will be "Letters from Iwo Jima". "Flags" definitely delivered a multi-fisted emotional combination that left a few eyes in the TV room a bit better hydrated than they normally would be. I read the book while still at home during summer 2007, and it was great to finally get to see the other half of the story on film. The first film I saw in a theater after redeploying from my first season on the Ice was "Letters from Iwo Jima" in the lovely Embassy Theater in Wellington, New Zealand.

We have a waxing moon here, which will be full soon, and the light on the sastrugi really reminds me of being at see on the Soren Larsen. In a lot of ways this experience at Pole is very similar to a long sea voyage, except we're in a stationary environment.

Much work will be done throughout the course of the week to prepare for the mid-winter concert on Saturday, which has been dubbed "Son of Polestock". I'll send links out about catching an Internet broadcast of the concert as that information becomes available.

2 comments:

Testablog said...

Hi Ethan

A Google Alert picked up yr mention of Soren on yr interesting blog.
How's everything down on the ice?

The ship is going fine - Gareth's still onboard, Cath and Darren are rejoining in Tahiti next week, Miranda was on the phone a moment ago...

So,if seeing tropical palm trees and coral will help in mid winter S Pole - then check out the recent video at http://news.sorenlarsen.co.nz/pebble/2008/06/14/1213363652006.html

and if that would be unhelpful then, er, ignore it!

cheers
Ian Hutch
Soren HQ

EthanG said...

Hi Ian, et al.

Life is good down on the Ice. As I wrote on this blog, the half-way point for winter is this weekend. I can't help but be reminded of our midway celebration on the voyage to Rapa Nui.

The folks that hired me to come down here were really interested to hear about that voyage, and with good reason. Though we are stuck effectively in one place, it still has the same feel of sailing through the open ocean without any contact with other representatives of the human race. I never felt antsy to get off the SL-even during my sickly first few days-and I really am not anxious to leave the Pole.

I'll give the video a gander, and thanks for getting in contact.

Fair winds,
Ethan