Captain Michel Gordillo sent this report at 0550 UTC, November 7, 2016, Current weather: 16 degrees F and sunny! Wind from the Northeast at 19 knots. 

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These days at Mario Zucchelli Station have made me to think a lot.

This Station is incredible. The kindness of the people in here, their so much interesting life, the scientific projects, the ones that make possible to go ahead. It is like a huge machinery, well oiled. It runs smooth.

But it is not a piece of cake. There is a lot of work at MZS. Everyone is the link of a huge chain. If it is missing, the chain cannot pull anything. I find myself in the middle of all of them. Not much to offer, even though I would like to do so.

My goals depend on them. I have to be able to keep flying and retrieving black carbon data.  To know what is going on with it in areas so remote than Antarctica, will help us about the health of our planet.  Some huge enterprises are aware of that, and I have to thanks ACCIONA, because they are the leaders sponsoring this project, because they do know about clean energies, and that it is a must to track that way. Global warming is a fact. Black Carbon is the second reason for that temperature increase.

Weather around and inside Antarctica is very special. It looks like a set of satellite gears, spinning around the big central one: Antarctica. Have a look to windytv software and you will understand it.

Result is that accessing Antarctica is not a piece of cake. I was really lucky to be able to do so.  Now, I need that same luck to be able to exit that wonderful and extreme continent.  Flying an airplane without anti-ice systems doesn’t help.  Much discussion is around concerning single crew or multi crew. Same with single engine or multi engine.  But I think that here, what it is needed is endurance, and of course, not being limited by weather. Of course that I am concerned about the upcoming flight it is a huge one. I know that I am prepared for it, and the aircraft has a nice endurance.

But one thing is preparing it, and another is flying it. Weather predictions are …weather predictions. Of course, nobody is going to fly under a bad prediction, nor I would be the one.

Fortunately, it looks like a weather window is opening. Tomorrow the 8th, could be a good day, but the Antarctic “peninsula”, the long side that points into South America, could not to be still ready for me to go.  Wednesday the 9th, seems much better, but….it is still a long distance prediction….

I really wish to have that prediction to be the real one! If so, I would have spent one week at Mario Zucchelli, and the experience is wonderful. Also the environment. The air is so clear and pure, that really far places seems to be a few kilometers away. The light is incredible. Also the winds. When winds blow, they do blow.

My dear RV suffered those winds and could be damaged easily. I have still not checked the plane, so I will do it tomorrow to be sure that everything is right. Let us keep our fingers crossed !!!!