Just when we were expecting the blizzard to continue for a few days and were mentally prepared for a long haul, we got an unexpected gift from the heavens- he weather cleared up on 9th Oct. The day was as beautiful as the day we left Maitri. There was bright sunshine with zero wind. Working outside was a pleasurable experience. To our surprise, we were unexpectedly close to our destination. So we did not have to move. This was also a fuel convoy. So the logistics personnel got busy with decanting job. Mr Gudade went to the porta cabin where his experiment was running. I joined him after finishing the cleanup job in the Banjara. I later took him around the shelf, to the containers, oil tankers (a few of these were completely buried in the snow after the blizzard the day before) and finally to the ocean. These were the only ‘tourist spots’ nearby. He later went back to the porta cabin to finish of his pending work and I trekked back 2 km to the Banjara. At places, the snow was extremely hard and polished because of the wind action. It looked like snow, but was a cross between snow and ice. It was dangerous because you took it to be snow but ended up slipping badly. No footprints were seen on this snow.
The logistics team was able to finish off the work comfortably. The vehicles were prepared for departure early on 10th Oct. We went to bed that night unaware of what lay ahead and how nature had fooled us.
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