25.12.2017 The new wintering crew arrived in time for christmas
The new wintering crew arrives with the Basler
The plane left immediately when everything was unloaded
It was still windy when the plane landed.
On Wednesday, the flying weather was not good, the surface contrast was pretty poor, but nevertheless the Basler brought the new wintering team and more summer people from Novo. The plane immediately flew back, and on the next day tons of cargo arrived, including my equipment that had been missing.
Unloading the plane
Suddenly we were 47 people on the base, and I could imagine how the winterers must have felt when the first plane arrived after the winter. In1990, there were no planes, and when the ship came the first time, it brought only a few people and we knew most of them. It did not feel like the base being suddenly run over by strangers.
Finally also the weather was good, so everybody wanted to visit the sea ice. The young emperor penguins are almost alone now, the adults have all gone to the open water to enjoy some seafood, so the predominant color in the colony is grey now.
The young emperor penguins are almost alone now
This time we went a bit farther and also saw Weddell seals. The young ones have grown so much, it is hard to distinguish them from their mothers from a distance. They were lying lazily on the sea ice, their main occupation is still growing. We had to cross a crack in the sea ice, but it was very small and not even I was scared. The sea ice is moving, though, and the crack had already been 30cm wide. Soon the time for the sea ice trips will be over, and by the time Polarstern arrives (end of January) the sea ice should be gone completely. Well, that’s the theory. It is different each year, sometimes the unloading of the ship takes place on the sea ice, sometimes the ice is too soft for unloading the heavy equipment, but too strong for the ship to get to the ice shelf edge. Then you can only wait and see.
another Weddell seal
Weddell seal on the sea ice
It was a wonderful trip again, the ice shelf edge is steeper where the seals are and looks more impressive than at the penguin colony, with a lot of shiny blue ice and steep flanks.
Then it was time to prepare for christmas. In the afternoon of the 24th we decorated the christmas tree. The tree was a plastic tree, but did not look too bad.
Christmas dinner
Decorating the christmas tree
I remembered, back in 1990, Polarstern had come already in early December and brought us a real christmas tree from South America. It was some conifere and looked and felt like a christmas tree, only the fragrance of a real pine or fir was missing. We managed to place all 47 people plus two “guests” from the South African ship “Agulhas”, a doctor and his patient, in the “Messe”, the dining room. The cooks had outdone themselves and created a fancy dinner for us, and we also had plenty of South African wine.
Singing christmas carols on the roof of the base in the light of the almost midnight sun
After dinner we went to the roof of the station, where we sang christmas carols. The music and words of the most famous songs had been printed and were given to the people. Sometimes we even managed to start with the same tune. 
After a while they started to sing old German pop songs, which seemed to work much better than the christmas carols, and everybody knew the words, too….
It felt a bit weird to sing christmas carols in such a bright, sunny environment, but we definitely had “White Christmas”!