Yesterday we left Sterlingov. Once again, we want to thank the staff of the weather station for a warm welcome. Girls are wonderful housewives, who created a homely place here, at the “edge of the world”, on a tiny weather station.
We are sure that people who have chosen life for themselves in the Arctic are special people. In a similar robinsonade there is a certain romanticism, but all the same it is necessary to describe in a few words what the work of a meteorologist at a polar station is. For the sake of what employees of meteorological stations live and work on extreme points of the globe? Observation of the weather. 24 hours a day, every three hours an employee of the polar station should take readings of the instruments, make visual, optical, hydrometeorological observations, record the level of excitement at sea, assess the “ice”, the degree of compression of drift ice, the thickness of the snow cover. And then go on radio contact with the Main Center and transfer this information there. All this is necessary not only for weather reports in TV news. Information from the meteorological stations is necessary, so that here, in the Far North, airplanes and helicopters flew. Weather stations provide weather forecasts for Yamal gas workers. Without data from weather stations, the Northern Sea Route could not function.
Before the start of the expedition, the staff of the meteorological station requested that they bring medicine to update the first aid kit, the flag of the Russian Federation and ….. a little candy. We are pleased to fulfill the order. Let the medicines remain unclaimed, and tea drinking is accompanied by pleasant memories of a meeting with the “Northern Landing Party”.
The weather pleases: it is sunny and almost windless. As previously reported, there was a breakdown of the experimental sled. We were convinced that the old design is more reliable. Having studied the consumption of gasoline, we concluded that our old Rosan snowmobiles are more economical, unlike cars of the latest generation. The reasons for the increased fuel consumption will try to find out later.
We leave on a route and during the whole day we move with minimal stops. By night, having traveled more than 200 km, we reach Rastorguev Island, part of the Great Arctic Reserve – the largest in Russia, and one of the largest in the world. Named after the Cossack Stepan Rastorguev, member of the Russian Polar Expedition 1900-1903gg. The island is 16 km long, with an average width of 3 km.
