At the end of June, at the winter solstice, a week is traditionally dedicated for what is called the "MidWinter". It's a exceptional week in the year, common to other subantarctic / antarctic / arctic bases, which marks the midpoint of the overwintering. The MidWinter is made for decompressing and breaking the routine, important for morale on the bases. We exchanged MidWinter wishes with the other bases:
The MidWinter begins with the election of the "Onz’Ams", a winterer who will take the role of district leader for this week of festivities. It is a tradition in the TAAF. After an election campaign and an intense political debate, it's Florian, representing the "Adventure party" who was elected: he will preside over the festivities of this week ! We organized themed days and evenings by team and cooked each meal (in place of our cooks). We started with a music day, where several musical atmospheres were set up on base, initiation on the piano, flute, and even bagpipes, evening blind-test and concerts
Scandinavian day, disguised as Vikings, we transformed the Skua (common living building) to an ocean of Drakkars, and on the menu, Swedish dishes!
Beach day, during which we were able to use the "swimming pool" (water retention basin), enjoy and pretend it was hot ...
The Olympic Games day, punctuated by multiple sporting events, started with a beautiful parade of countries ...
Then there were different competitions, including: curling (yes yes, by using WD40 on old insulation boards ... had to think of it!), espadrille throwing, shot put, discus throwing, basketball, football, games …
Then the final podium at the end of the day, followed by a chef's buffet.
Christmas Day (the winter weather was perfect), decorations and cakes by the hundreds, prepared by the team of elves ...
Breton Day, which transformed the Skua into a crêperie ...
Then into Las Veg'Ams casino ...
And finally, Fort Boy’Ams day, Southern Fort Boyard events ...
A wonderful week!
Other events punctuated our mid-way of wintering, such as the Southern Games. This sporting competition between French bases (Crozet, Kerguelen, Dumont d'Urville and Concordia in Antarctica) takes place annually around the end of July. In preparation for this, we organized the Games between ourselves in mid-May, where VSC, military and contractuals competed in cycling (indoor), running (mats), rowing machine and doing the plank
.It was a great competition, won by the VSC with the "creating atmosphere" prize!
The 2021 Southern Games were organized by Dumont d'Urville and included various events such as: running (on mat), rower, pull-ups, push-ups, burpees, squats, sit-ups, dance and acrosport.
During the winter, we also had the idea of contacting the other Antarctic bases on their national holidays, by sending them a photo with their flag ... it created an opportunity for some nice connections with the other international bases, all as isolated as we are in this southern winter!
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