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[[underlined]] Thursday. Dec. 10 [[/underlined]] Awoke at 5:30 and had to scramble off upper berth & go upstairs. I cannot hydrate myself beyond a certain level. Must have lost 24 02 in one session. Back to sleep one more hour. Roused at 7 by Gh's alarm. Breakfast by ~7:20. Dropped 18 letters. The P.O. man said they would be received by X-Mas.

In am changed beds, read news dispatches vacuumed floor, wrote letters, talked. At noon went to P.O., store (bought jogging suit & film mailer) and returned for a quiet afternoon of reading & thinking about my course & manuscripts. Went to biology library and found a new sign "Bernard's Chair" on the easy chair I occupied the last time. No one was around so I used the other chair & did some searching thru ^[[Amer]] Scientist & some books. Got very sleepy. Accomplished v. little. Dinnertime came before I ever go hungry. But there was Hawaiian Duck. We sat w Zeller & Dresloff and talked about accents and ancestors. After dinner we went to liquor store to buy our weekly ration. I chose 2 white wines this time. We found the Library open & explored it. It is [[underlined]] good [[/underlined]]. I checked out Nigel Calder's The Comet is Coming. The weather has changed. A cloud covered the top of Observation Hill tonight. Sky overcast, wind up. Still mild.

A Hercules came from chch & went back today. Brought the mail. My package of Granite Harbor pictures I asked Karen to send. Can't tell where it was mailed.

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Annexstad and Schulty are due in tomorrow. They say the helos will fly again. Indeed, one has just appeared on the pad and is warming up. 9:30 PM! a new sight & sound at McM.

The sea ice is really soft & wet now. I wouldnt want to skidoo on it -- would expect to slip through a hole. No more planes will land on it. Back in chch Bob Thomsen showed us a chart indicating that the ice usually goes out on or about Dec. 21. Regardless of thickness. This year, then, it is 10 days early.

[[underlined]] Friday Dec. 11 [[/underlined]]

After breakfast we intended to go and get our radio and learn how to use it. But we stopped at the chalet to [[underlined]] ask when [[/underlined]] we go to [[underlined]] Granite Harbor and [[/underlined]] who the N. Zealanders are who will accompany us. We were told that if we wish to talk with them we should do it this AM because they were to be lifted to Cape Evans this PM. We go to Granite Harbor on Tuesday. Pick up the two N.Z. hut specialists en route. Niel, the helo logistics man, gave me the phone number of the chef at Scott Base ^[[(Larry Newton)]] I called him and he urged us to go to Scott before 10 AM because the 2 men, Jack Fey and Jerry Turner, would be working at the Shelter at Hut Point today. "What, and leaving for Cape Evans in the afternoon?", I thought ?

Ghislaine and I hiked to Scott Base. The sky was overcast, a few snowflakes in the air, headwind