Covers for Warmth

A pic from a week ago, showing some of the snowsculpture that the winds like to do.

Bad weather is the phrase stamped across the last week. It has meant the effective end of hopes for sea-ice travel on my forthcoming winter trip, but on the plus side has bulked up the snow stores which, given some decent conditions, may allow some new and exciting routes to be skiied...

So lots of indoor activities, many involving strings, ears, and chords of the vocal and guitar varieties. I've been practicing singing and playing at the same time and i'm definately getting somewhere and i think that somewhere is better. anyway, for anyone who happens to be interested i've made a few cover versions for my own enjoyment and practice of guitar skills.

Dead Weight on Velveteen - Jose Gonzalez Cover

If you haven't heard of this guy i recommend you look him up and listen to his album "Veneer" which is a cracking set of songs just performed on a classical guitar with vocals. His voice is 1 million times better than mine, of course!

Kathy's Song - Simon and Garfunkel Cover

Everyone knows this tune or has heard it before, it's quite typically sad for the Simon and Garfunkel stuff but still a cracking song about missing loved ones so quite appropriate.

Today i went out with Alison the marine assistant and GA Roger Stillwell (see blog link to right...) to do a CTD which basically means taking one of the little RIBs a few kms out into the sea and winding a sensor array down to 350m and then hauling it back up, which is an excellent way to get warm especially when, like today, it was about -12! It was so cold with the wind that i hardly took any photos but i took a little bit of video whn Ali was driving us back - the wind had got up and the sea was freezing very quickly (freezing temp of the sea is about -1.8 degrees C) so we were ploughing through varying thicknesses of pancake, nilas and grease ices. After a few seconds my fingers were totally numb so i had to stop... here lie the digital remnants of that little morning trip:

Escape from CTD Site 1

The crappy weather has also galvanised action from me on the matter of the Rothera Winter 2007 Film Festival, due to be held and judged in October. I am doing a 5 minute animation and doing a sountrack for it. Quite fun trying to work out how to do it...! That's all for now.

rob