Merry Christmas, folks!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year !

It's that time of year again, the decorations are up, the cards are sent, the presents wrapped. This year I have been deficient on the card side, so here is an attempt to make up for things. The picture above was taken in March 2006, on the Southern Indian Ocean island of Crozet, and shows the peaceful co-habitation of Royal Penguins and Elephant Seals. I've turned it into my official 2007 Christmas card.

My thoughts go to my family, with whom I had an early Christmas reunion ten days ago, to my friends and colleagues in Strasbourg, Cambridge, Pasadena and Rome (you know who you are), to our valiant seismic operators at Crozet, Kerguelen, New Amsterdam, Dumont d'Urville and Concordia, and to the folks spending Christmas on the high seas aboard the Astrolabe (current position shown below).

Best wishes to all !

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Keep up to date with the latest developments at http://sismordia.blogspot.com

Midwinter 2007

Midwinter... in June ??

Sure, if you're in the southern hemisphere...! While all the northern hemisphere residents celebrate the longest day of the year, the Southern hemisphere residents endure their longest night.

It has long been a tradition in Antarctica to celebrate Midwinter with festivities and dinners. What exactly goes on in the various scientific bases is little known, apart from that made public by the residents themselves, but much lively and drunken fun is to be expected.

Amongst the various Midwinter traditions are the Greetings Cards made by each over-wintering team, and sent to all the other scientific bases.

Here are a list of blog-posts I have found on this year's Midwinter celebrations. Should you know of any more that could be included, let me know!

• Midwinter greetings by Tom at bigblueglobe
• More midwinter greetings by Tom at bigblueglobe
• Midwinter weekend - Friday by sandwichgirl on sandwichgirl
• Midwinter dinner in Antarctica by iceseren on knitsonice

Also, should you wish to send Midwinter greetings to the over-winter team at Concordia or at one of the other Antarctic bases and don't know how to do so, please leave them in a comment and I'll make sure they get delivered.