Dave Down South

Summer time........

2007-02-09T11:57:00.000Z

.....and the livin' is chilly.

Well relief was as hectic as we expected. When the ship finally broke free of the sea ice and managed to get to Halley all on board were keen to get started unloading and getting supplies up to base. Like relief last year, a lot of my time was spent in the Comms office flight following and handing over to Dean the Comms Manager for the next year. The relief site was N9 again, which is the furthest away of the regular relief sites and normally means a longer operation. This year the plane did quite a few rotations to the ship and back which reduced the workload on the snocats somewhat, but also the vehicles section had a new secret weapon, in the form of very large Challenger vehicles and converted John Deere tractors. These are able to pull much heavier loads than the snocats and at faster speeds so relief was all over in 7 days. Luckily Dean picked up the flight following pretty quickly, so I got to copilot a couple of flights over to the ship. It's been a year since I was any more than about 20 feet above ground so it was nice to get up in the plane again. Everything looks very different from the air, with the base looking much more spread out than it feels on the ground, and having got used to being confined to the same couple of square kilometres it's a very liberating feeling being up in the sky. The flagged roadway from the base to N9 was already looking very well worn, and we took the opportunity to buzz a couple of snocats on our way over.

Snocats taking cargo to Halley

The ship looked much smaller than I remembered, nestled into a cove in the ice shelf and dwarfed by it's surroundings. We were picking up a variety of cargo from the ship so were met at the skiway by a snocat and sledge full of cargo handlers. I had the strenuous and very responsible job of holding a calculator and totting up the weight of everything as it was loaded onto the plane, calling a halt when we got to 1200kg to ensure we'd be able to take off again.

The Shack at N9

The rest of relief consisted mostly of moving boxes, moving barrels, or opening large crates and moving the contents. At the end of the week the ship headed north again, along with Vicki, Fran and Anto, the first of our wintering team to head off. It felt very much like the end of an era as they left so we were all up at the skiway for an emotional farewell.

Leaving committee at the skiway

And then we were full swing into the summer. The base takes on a very different feel, not just because the population has gone from 16 to about 60, but there is definitely more of a buzz and a sense of urgency about the place. That's not to say we didn't do any work over winter but things are definitely a bit more relaxed in the dark months. Luckily even in summer Halley is still small enough that you get to know everyone on base pretty quickly so there's still a bit of a family atmosphere. The main focus of summer for outgoing winterers is handing over to their replacements, ensuring they know where everything is and going over the finer points of the job. Dean comes from an IT background like me, making that side of things an easy handover, so after a quick run through the radio equipment and a tour of the HF masts and the comms container he was pretty much up to speed allowing to me to leave him to it and put my feet up for the summer!

Unfortunately we had a couple of projects to complete so my smug feeling of relaxation was short lived. First to be tackled was the install of a new Dartcom, which is a satellite system giving us images of the ice shelf and surrounding area. The existing Dartcom lived on the Simpson and was largely held together with gaffer tape and wishful thinking, so a shiny new one had come in to be installed in the Laws. Having found all the boxes we unpacked it all in the gym to try and see what was what. The internal equipment consists of a rack full of impressive looking computers, while on the roof there's a dome housing the satellite dish, and also a GPS compass. Everything had been meticulously labelled in the UK before being shipped so it all went together fairly easily, the hardest part being getting the dome equipment up onto the roof and aligning the dish with a compass bearing. The whole system is up and running now and giving very clear images, hopefully it will survive the winter just as well.

We started with a large collection of boxes

Shiny new computers

Jim and Terry lay the foundation for the dome

Dish installed and ready to go

Ready to withstand the winter

All our highly efficient handover work in the Comms department meant I was suddenly free to help out with some other base tasks.
"Morning Dave," said Pat. "You're going out in the plane today with John and Nic."
"Great," I thought, "off on a jolly."
"You'll need spare warm clothes and a shovel."
"Bugger."
Our job for the day was to fly out to Site5 and raise a fuel depot, so with barely enough time to pack a bag and make some sandwiches we were off to the skiway. The flight was about 3 hours, with a stop on the way to refuel at Bluefields, a nice little spot by the sea. Site5 itself was rather more typical of an Antarctic fuel depot, a couple of flags and a post in the middle of a large flat white expanse. The depot turned out to be not too badly buried and after about 4 hours digging we'd raised the 6 full and 30 or so empty barrels to the surface, loaded a few empties onto the plane and were away. Well almost. We were bimbling merrily along at take off speed but the plane remained resolutely on the ground despite much yanking on the controls by Ian the pilot. It turns out that very soft powdery snow can be a problem for aircraft as it rides up over the front of the skis preventing take off, so we taxied back and forth over the same tracks a couple of times to compact the snow and had another go, this time sucessfully as the plane grudgingly got airborn. We got back to base at about 11pm after a good day out, and rewarded ourselves with a lie in the following day.

Site5: There's drums under there somewhere

The team in full swing. Photo by Ian.

Drums raised. Photo by Ian.

As it turned out I should have paid more attention at Bluefields when we stopped to refuel as I was soon going to become much better acquainted with it..... This time it was to be just John and I spending a couple of days raising the depot, so the following week we were going out with tent, food, radio and of course plenty of spare shovels. Bluefields was a larger depot, about 200 drums according to the plan, and was buried deeper than Site5, with the drums under a couple of feet of snow. We went out with Bob and Ian on the plane, the plan being for them to drop us off and head back to Halley. I hadn't realised that the plane couldn't leave until we had established contact with a base, so after a frustrating hour trying to raise people on HF and Iridium we finally got through to Rothera and set up our sched times, and Bob and Ian left us to it.

The plane departs

When the depot had been built last year someone had thoughtfully left behind a skidoo so we were saved quite a lot of manual labour. Having dug down to the first row of drums we created a ramp, and then after persuading the frozen barrels to separate were able to attach ropes and pull them out with the doo.

Drums ready to come out

Pulling out with the skidoo. Photo by Bob.

After a few attempts we had perfected a technique and were soon working well, although even at peak efficiency we were probably only getting out about 10 barrels an hour. The work was pretty hard but we were rewarded with a lovely view out to sea and the monotony was broken by the odd visit from aircraft.

The view from the tent

Ian and Bob came back several times to pick up barrels, as well as another plane that was working nearby at a different depot. The weather was somewhat warmer than it had been on our winter trips so the tent was plenty warm enough and after a days digging we certainly slept soundly. Well I did, John just got an introduction to my now legendary snoring, but that's all part of the Antarctic camping experience.........

After a long day. Photo by Ian

At the end of day 3 one of the planes brought us a drum crusher for the empties. Crushing the drums reduces them to about a third of their size and means we can fit many more onto a plane, which means less flights required to get them back to Halley.

The drum crusher in action. Photo by Bob.

After 4 days of digging, dragging, swearing and crushing we'd raised all the drums and rebuilt the depot on the surface, so we struck camp and headed back to Halley for a much needed shower to try and get rid of the all pervading smell of avtur.

The finished article

Loading the plane to go home

Unfortunately I was going on to a week of nights so I needed to try and stay up as long as possible. I made it to about half past five in the morning before collapsing into bed. For the next few days I ached. A lot.

Being on nights meant I neatly avoided the drama of raising the satellite dome. This houses the dish that gives us all our communications with the outside world, and we were a bit apprehensive about raising as it means switching everything off, and last year it took a week to find the satellite again. This year we were luckier and had everything back up and running in a day, thanks to Dean's expert work with the spectrum analyser (that's techspeak for accidentaly tripping over the satellite when he least expected it).

As the summer is a busier time there tends to be a bit less going on leisure-wise, although this year has seen a huge rise in the number of kiting enthusiasts, on a good day there are about 10 of them out whizzing up and down on skis and boards. We had high drama in the annual doubles pool competition, with the last few matches going down to the wire, and we've managed a couple of musical evenings to give people a chance to showcase their talents. We also had the traditional soccer match, with the traditionally liberal interpretation of rules, and a very good BBQ. The vehicles guys also extended an open invitation to anyone who fancied having a go at driving the new Challengers and John Deeres so a few of us went down and grinned like idiots for half an hour or so.

The answer to all your commuting problems

In action towing the garage to it's new location

But now the season is almost over, the ship is due back next week for second call and those of us who are leaving will be off back to the Falklands and then home. I'll leave with mixed emotions, it's been an incredible year down here and I'll be sad to leave, but I'm also looking forward to seeing hills and trees, scenery that isn't white, and catching up with friends and family back home. In the meantime there is a very good article here with advice for those of you awaiting the return of someone from the Antarctic.

A white Christmas - in the middle of summer

2007-01-01T22:52:00.000Z

Happy New Year! Hope you all had an excellent Christmas as well. It's been a bit strange here, not being bombarded by the constant Christmas advertising since September it all tends to creep up on you quite quickly.

The beginning of December saw us all out and about doing more preparation work for the summer season. We had more fuel raising to do, and this time I managed to avoid knocking any teeth out. It was a lovely day to be outside and we were soon down to shirt sleeves, which seems a bit bizarre when you're surrounded by snow. It was still very warm work under a fleece lined hard hat though.

Anto backs the crane up to the buried fuel drums

The drums are hooked up to be plucked from the snow...

..and then dropped onto a sledge

Halfway through the pile

The operation in full swing

We also raised a posse to help Jules with a catenary raise, which involved pulling about 40 enormous wooden stakes out of the snow, only to bang them straight back in again, and reattach a cable on top. After that I volunteered to help Liz with her legs...... Well actually the legs of the building. Like everything else here the Laws building has to be raised to keep it above the snow, so Liz and I were up ladders manhandling steel plates and then raising the building on a giant hydraulic jack built in to the leg. Unfortunately the jack needs about 60 pumps to raise the building by 20mm so it's a fairly long job.

Pulling catenary stakes out of the ground

Planting the Halley orchard

Putting the finishing touch

The following day was another chance to visit the penguin colony, which has changed dramatically since the last visit. The penguins are now much more spread out across the sea ice, and where previously we saw adult penguins with some eggs and the odd tiny chick, now there are huge grey balls of fluff wandering about bullying their parents into feeding them. The penguins seem to be a lot less interested in us now as well, so there were no curious groups coming up to say hello. There were other interested parties about though, as we saw a handful of skuas flying about and a couple of petrels. Sadly the skuas seemed more interested in picking off underfed penguin chicks.

Very spread out penguin colony

A skua pauses to see if Bob is edible

Some chicks are as big as their parents

Others have a bit more growing to do

Spot which ones have been taking growth hormones

We've had more planes through as a German Dornier came on it's way to Neumayer base, where 3 of our summer team were waiting to get here having travelled via South Africa, then Novo and Sanae bases. When they finally got here the fog had closed in a bit so the plane was forced to land out on the Windy drumline, a couple of kilometres away from base. Our rapid response refuelling team was immediately sent out to meet them - in a dozer that averages about 5km per hour. Eventually the plane got bored and decided to taxi towards us instead.

That signalled the beginning of summer, no longer are there just the 16 of us here. We've now got a BAS plane stationed here as well, which brought a couple more people over from Rothera. It's nice to see some new faces though, and hear some different stories to the ones we've been telling each other for the last 9 months. The last week or so it's been touch and go as to whether or not we'd see any other faces at all though. We've been following the ship's progress through a combination of position reports and the blogs of people on board. All was going well until the ship got close to Neumayer base and then appeared to come to a shuddering halt. Although the Ernest Shackleton is an ice strengthened ship it's not an ice breaker, which is a crucial difference when faced with sea ice several metres thick. The ship spent a nerve wracking 10 days trying to find a way through the ice. Initially it just seemed like a minor irritation to add to an already interesting summer season, but then we started getting concerned about the lack of important things like fresh food and post. And the minor stuff like fuel to run the base. But as a result of the ship being late we did manage to have a relaxed Christmas meal and some celebrations which was a nice change from last year when the festive season seemed to pass us by altogether.

The relief operation is slowly starting to get underway now, the first couple of snocats have arrived with cargo from the ship and the plane has been back and forth a couple of times. Soon we'll be in full swing with a whole host of new people to get to know, and tell vastly exaggerated stories about how tough the winter was.

The end of winter approaches

2006-11-25T17:15:00.000Z

Sometimes we need a reminder of what life is like in the real world, just in case we start to think that what we have down here is in some way normal. To this end Simon gave an interesting talk and slide show at the beginning of the month, showing us shots from various canoeing trips on the rivers of Scotland, and a ski touring holiday in Austria. OK, so the ski touring photos were quite similar to here, but the rest was a good opportunity to see some green scenery and trees.

Then a couple of days later to further highlight the changes happening here, we all had a trip on a cruise ship. Well not quite. In order to celebrate Vicki's birthday we decided to do a murder mystery party for dinner. If you've not done one of these before, everyone is given a character to play, and with the aid of a few clues and hints has to work out the identity of the murderer, usually good fun and a chance for everyone to bring out their inner sleuth. Ours was set on a 1920s cruise liner, and after much costume making, overacting, and accusations and counter-accusations, it turned out Simon was the dastardly murderer.

Straight from an Agatha Christie novel......... - Photo by Anto

Having had a fairly quiet week on nights (although we're now well into 24hr daylight), I was taking advantage of some good weather to raise a few catenaries when I was interrupted by John asking me and Jules to go and check the skiway. Skiway is a bit of a grand term for a line of drums in the snow marking where the planes should land, but nevertheless we checked they were still all there as we were due to have to some unexpected visitors. It turns out that the DC3 that had visited the previous week had run into difficulties and a search and rescue plane was coming through on it's way to help them out. Luckily no-one on the DC3 was hurt, they had just landed on some unexpectedly rough terrain and hit a large sastrugi, breaking a wheel strut and a propeller. Luckily there are agreements in place between the various Antarctic operators so in the event of a problem help can be called upon. In this instance a Twin Otter run by one of the tourist companies was coming through, so we had some more new people to meet, and had a very good evening entertaining the Canadian crew.

ALE Twin Otter at the skiway - Photo by Jules

The good weather continued for a while so I took advantage and spent a couple of pleasant hours sitting outside reading and enjoying the sunshine. It's a bit strange having the smell of suncream in the air but still wearing several layers of clothing and not being on a beach. Vicki and I also managed what seemed like a mammoth ski out to the 5k marker and back. Luckily we made it back in time to finish cooking dinner.

Preparation for summer is picking up pace now with more base jobs to do. One of the main jobs is cleaning the melt tank. This involves everyone having the luxury of extra long showers (a whole 4 minutes!) in order to use up the water so that people can climb into the melt tank and give it a good scrub out. Once this is done we should be able refill with water from the Drewry melt tank, but unfortunately this time there were problems with frozen pipes so we spent about a week doing daily water runs from the Drewry to the Laws in order to maintain a workable water supply. Luckily the tech services guys here pulled out all the stops and got things working again fairly quickly so we were able to do some washing again.

Filling a transit tank with water to take to the Laws

Also on the list of base jobs has been getting the Drewry, our summer accommodation building, fit for habitation as it is shut down for the winter with no heating so requires a bit of fettling and a good clean out to get going again, and various bits of sledge clearing and drum raising. As a result I've been frantically trying to locate all the bits of IT equipment that I took out of the Drewry at the end of last summer to make sure they still work, but I think I've found them all now.

All that was left to complete our preparations for summer was our end of winter celebrations. As usual on special occasions Nic produced a fantastic spread for dinner, and then we got the various instruments out and had a musical evening in the bar. Luckily we got a lie in the next day as we changed our clocks back to GMT -3 to put us in line with Rothera and the other bases. All that remains now is for the summer people and next year's winterers to arrive. Due to various logistical problems things are running a bit behind schedule but we expect to see the first summerers later this week, with most people arriving on the ship around the middle of December.

Winter trip II and new faces

2006-10-31T20:52:00.000Z

Having not had an entirely successful first winter trip back in March, although we did get a couple of days away in a caboose, I was hopeful for better luck when the second round of trips came along. The second trip is usually longer, at about 10 days, which gives more opportunity for exploring and also more leeway in the event of bad weather. Luckily this time the weather was good enough to get away on day one. Simon and Vicki headed out to do some GPS work at the new Halley VI site in the morning, and in the afternoon we headed out. Taking four people on holiday for 10 days here involves a bit more than packing a couple of suitcases. We had four skidoos loaded up with bags containing rescue gear and spare clothes, and spades, ice axes and snow stakes all bungeed on to the back. We also had four sledges carrying tents, stoves, cooking equipment, food, p-bags (consisting of sleeping bag and liner, sleepmat, sheepskin), radios, fuel, utensils, medical supplies, and enough rope to keep Houdini busy for weeks. We had decided initially to go to the Rumples and set up camp there. The Rumples is an area near the coast where the ice shelf flows over ridges in the sea bed causing it to rise up and break apart causing a, well, rumpled effect. This is a favourite trip destination as you get to see some scenery other than the flat white vista we have become used to.

The trip out was about an hour ride by skidoo, initially just towing a sledge each, but as we got nearer to the Rumples and the risk of crevasses increased, we roped the skidoos up in pairs, the theory being that if one disappears down a big hole the second should prevent it from being completely unrecoverable. Skidoos are a great way to travel down here and will happily pull a loaded sledge at about 20kph, but can be a bit chilly as you're open to the elements. I'm always grateful for heated handlebar grips when I'm out on the bike in winter in the UK, but they're definitely an essential item down here. I suppose in a way it would be nice to have the romanticism of travelling with dogs like in the old days, but this may be outweighed by the hassle of carrying several hundred tins of Pedigree Chum instead of a couple of jerries of fuel.

Simon picked a path through the crevasses to the camp site and we spent a couple of hours setting up. The pyramid tents we use are pretty rugged and fairly easy to set up, but positioning needs to be thought about so it doesn't get snow blown straight through the door or end up acting as a giant sail in the first high wind. Once you've got all your sleeping gear, primus stove, tilly lamp, pots box, food box and tent box all set up inside the accomodation is pretty compact, but there's still room to move about, do your cooking, and hang clothes up to dry. The camp consisted of two tents with two people per tent, but in the evenings you tend to all end up in one tent playing cards or chatting. With the tents up we made sure all the other gear was easily to hand outside, covered over the skidoos and looked forward to a first night camping out on the wilderness.

Camp site with the Rumples in the background

Day 2 broke with a very cold tent and ice everywhere. Most people sleep with just a tiny hole in the top of the sleeping bag to breathe through and everything else well covered. There then commences a battle of wills, or a battle of bladders, to see who will break first and emerge from their cocoon to get the stove lit and put some snow on to melt. Once the primus and the Tilly are on the tent warms up pretty quickly and breakfast can be considered. We opted for a fairly leisurely morning, then went out for a stroll after lunch in the vicinity of the camp site. We found a crevasse so took the opportunity to explore it. First Simon cleared a couple of man sized holes in the top of the crevasse, then we set up the ropes and abseil point to head in. I'm not great with heights and all this abseiling malarkey still involves a fair bit of trepidation, but nevertheless I was determined to go in and have look. This involves a normal abseil down, but as there is no guarantee of a floor to stand on once inside, you then have to change from abseil equipment to jumar equipment to enable you to climb back up, all the while dangling on the rope hoping fervently that you did your harness up properly. It's all worthwhile though as the crevasse was beautiful inside. All of a sudden you're out of the wind blowing on the surface, and everything turns very blue. Looking down I couldn't see the bottom of the crevasse, so I didn't look down for very long, but all around were wonderful crystals and formations in the ice, and silence apart from the faint tinkling of ice falling below, or the puffing and swearing of the person on the other rope trying to climb back out. As we've all had a bit of jumaring experience by now on penguin trips the climb out wasn't too bad, especially with the addition of crampons to get a good grip on the ice wall. Having explored the crevasse we headed back to camp for tea and medals.

Mark disappearing into a crevasse (on purpose)

Vicki heading back up

You may remember my midwinter present was a patchwork wall hanging
depicting the view out from a crevasse. Turns out it was pretty accurate.

Me trying to look relaxed. Photo from Vicki.

Day 3 brought with it lousy contrast so we weren't able to go out, instead content to sit in the tent reading, eating and dozing, just like a holiday back home really. When field parties go out on trips like these there are always daily pre-arranged times for radio contact with base to ensure everyone is safe and well and catch up on any news and gossip. On this occasion there was an event going on in the UK to mark the 50th Anniversary of the building of the first Halley base, so there was a big posh dinner going on back at base with a video link up to the UK to let all the old FIDs who've been down here before say hello, reminisce, and tell us all how it was much harder in their day. We contented ourselves with vodka and cards.

Day 4 had better weather so we decided to go and explore the Rumples, which had been sitting there looking invitingly interesting for a couple of days. We found a route in and walked up to the aptly named High Point from where we could see Halley in the distance. I don't think it was actually that high at all but when you're used to a complete lack of geographical features you take what you can get. We then headed further out towards the coast, seeing some incredible formations in the ice and peering in to a couple more crevasses. All the walking on the ice shelf is done as an alpine four, with all of us attached to the same rope, again so that if one person falls down a hole the others can haul them out. Luckily we didn't have to test this theory, but as you walk you are always looking around trying to see features in the snow which might indicate the presence of a crevasse underneath. Anytime your footsteps start to sound unusually hollow you wonder if it would have been a good idea not to have that extra bit of chocolate for breakfast. We explored another crevasse on the way back. This time my prussic device, which is supposed to act as a sort of handbrake while abseiling, decided not to be very effective, so I had a slightly nervy time changing over to jumars but managed to get out unscathed.

Mark and Vicki at High Point

Simon and Vicki

Me doing my invisible man impression

Sledge Happy looking gnarly. Photo from Simon

The plan for Day5 was to head out in the opposite direction and explore some larger cracks in the ice with a view to abseiling down to the sea ice and having a wander about. We walked quite a way, investigating a few potential abseil points before Simon found one he was happy with. Unfortunately on the way down I was so busy concentrating on my prussic, hoping it would work this time, that I managed to get my abseil device caught on the cornice at the edge of the drop, which then flipped over the wrong way trapping the rope and leaving me hanging, unable to go up or own. Luckily for me Mark and Vicki were still at the top so after my vain attempts to extricate myself had failed, they managed with superhuman effort to haul me back up. By this time we'd walked further than anticipated and were all a bit knackered so we decided discretion was the order of the day and headed back to camp.

Me at the beginning of the abseil. Photo from Simon.

Day6 arrived with no contrast in the morning, so we made a plan to break camp and head over to Creek 2 caboose in the afternoon and stay there for the remaining days. Having spent a couple of hours packing up it was a short skidoo ride over to the caboose, during which we had a petrel flying alongside us for a while and then were treated to a very impressive display of the sun complete with sun dogs, a halo, and a circumzenithal arc (I think.....). Setting up at the caboose is much easer and quicker as there are no tents to erect so we were soon settling down to dinner and a book for the evening.

Day7 was my birthday! This will definitely be one to remember, it's not often you get to celebrate a birthday in a place like this. The day started very well as I managed to abseil down to the sea ice without getting anything wrong. We walked along the sea ice for a few kilometres looking in at the various creeks as we passed. It was very strange to think that last December we were in the same place, but on the ship looking for a place to moor up for relief. We found a few leads or cracks in the ice but none of them went down to water so it was obviously very thick. We also met a couple of penguins who had wandered away from the main colony, causing much speculation as to wether they were heading somewhere specific or just looking for open water. Eventually the contrast disappeared again so we headed back up onto the ice shelf and walked back along the top of the cliffs to the caboose. In the evening I was treated to everyone at base singing Happy Birthday to me over the radio, with Kirsty even giving a rendition in Spanish.

Penguins on a search for open water

Sledge Happy on the sea ice

On Day8 we were hoping to go over to Windy caboose and see the main penguin colony, but unfortunately the weather turned against us on the way over so we headed back to Creek2 and spent the afternoon learning to play Backgammon and reading.

We got up on Day9 hoping for an improvement in the weather to get to Windy but it never came so we packed up and headed back to base after lunch for a much needed shower!

All in all a fantastic holiday. It's always nice to get off base for a while, but to have the opportunity to do all these things is one of the real perks of being down here, and it's an incredible privilege to have seen places that very few others have seen.

We got back just in time for the weekend, and on the Saturday Nic cooked a wonderful spread of tapas for my birthday meal, just what was needed after my somewhat dubious attempts as making Pina Coladas in the bar beforehand. I also received what is probably the largest chocolate cake ever created in the Antarctic, but I was very good and shared it with everyone else.

Antarctic birthday cake

The other big news is that we've had our first visitors since March. Much as we all get along very well down here, we were all very excited at the prospect of seeing some new faces, and had been looking forward to the arrival of the BASLER plane for some time. It also heralded the arrival of fresh fruit and vegetables which is something that is definitely missed at the end of winter. After a couple of false starts due to weather, the plane left King George Island at the top of the peninsular at midnight, which meant I was up all night flight following until it arrived here at 5 in the morning. We laid on a cooked breakfast for the 3 Canadian crew and their 3 Russian passengers, who were on their way over to Novo, a Russian base on the Dronning Maud Land coast. The plane is a DC3, which looks a little out of place here when you're used to seeing the little Twin Otters, but they were only here to drop of the freshies and take on fuel, so after a brief tour of the base they were off again. One of the crew got a nasty shock when he came back to the Laws to pick up a coat he'd left behind, only to find 6 of us in the kitchen staring at the fresh veg and giggling insanely to ourselves. I never thought lettuce would have that effect on me.

Green things!

DC3 refuelling at the skiway

Now that the excitement of the first plane is over we start gearing up for the coming summer season and the influx of people in December. Meanwhile I've got another week of nights starting tomorrow so it's back to baking and cleaning for me.

Daytime activities

2006-09-20T17:23:00.000Z

Things have been relatively quiet the last few weeks, which is a poor excuse for not having written anything for ages but it's the best I could come up with. My week of nights went pretty well. It's a bit strange getting up and having a normal dinner for breakfast but I coped with the hardship well enough! I managed to remember how to make bread, and even branched out into croissants, doughuts and selkirk bannock, most of which turned out OK. By the time I came off nights again we were on to normal length days, and now the eternal dark of winter seems like a distant memory. Already the sun is up before I am (not a difficult task I'll grant you) and we have daylight into the early evening. The Met team are predicting 24hr daylight will be back with us around the beginning of November.

As a result many more outdoor pursuits are now back on the agenda. One new hobby which seems to have attracted a few people is running. Some fool, I can't remember who, suggested we do a Halley Half Marathon. Outside. In the snow. In temperatures around -20. I think the initial misplaced enthusiasm has now died down a bit and we may be aiming for a 10k run. I won't use the word race as most of us will be concentrating on finishing at all, never mind where we are in relation to everyone else. Handily 10k is roughly the distance from Creek 2 back to Halley so we have a ready made course. In preparation the base is now treated to the sight of a handful of people slogging round the perimeter when the weather permits. Luckily (?) for us Liz our chippie is an accomplished triathlete and is relishing the opportunity to train us all in the joys of distance running. It certainly feels very strange going outdoors in just thermals and jogging gear rather than boots, overalls and huge jackets but, and I never thought I'd say this, it's actually quite enjoyable in a perverse kind of way, and you get to feel all smug and self righteous, until your leg muscles start screaming and you decide to have double helpings of dinner to make up for it. All this running, and the occasional ski for variety, doesn't seem to have made much difference at our fortnightly weigh-in though, in fact we're currently at our collective heaviest since the start of winter.

In a bid to counteract all that healthy exercise we decided to have a pub crawl. We've all been going to the same bar for about 9 months now so a change was called for and we had a tour of the CASLab, Simpson platform, the newly erected Weather Haven, and Piggott before ending back at the Laws for chips. The only difficulty was the weather haven as it's not heated so drinks started freezing in the glass and dancing was required in order to keep warm. The weather haven is actually a garage for Halley's very own zepellin. The Met team have a Blimp which is used to take instruments up into the air to measure ozone levels. So far they've made about 3 flights which have all been pretty successful.

The coldest pub in the world?

The Met team launch the blimp

The increased light means more outdoor work as well. Fuelling is one of our biggest concerns down here. Our power comes from generators, which obviously need fuel to run, and if they were to stop things would very quickly become uncomfortable. Our fuel is stored in large bulk tanks, or in drums, stored at various points around base. From there it is transferred to the flubbers, which are down in the tunnels. These look like giant water balloons and act as the fuel tanks for the generators. The transfer of fuel from storage to the flubbers needs fairly good weather as it could be a hazardous process, so when the opportunity presented itself Bob asked me to give him a hand. This involved hooking a dozer up to a sledge with a transit tank, driving out to the bulk tanks to transfer fuel to the transit tank, then over to the tunnel entrance to pump it down to the flubbers. We did two trips and transferred about 10,000 litres which should keep us going for a while.

I've also managed to get off base for a while helping Simon with some GPS work. As the ice shelf we live on is constantly moving we place GPS units at one or two spots to monitor the speed and direction of ice flow. Simon and I spent a day out setting up a couple of units which was a good chance to get out and see some new scenery. We also have strain loggers which are placed over cracks in the ice to determine if they are closing up or getting wider.

GPS transmitter, with a weather station behind

The base is a little quieter now as winter trips have started. This is our chance for a holiday when Simon takes us out in groups of 4 for 10 days to go camping up at the Rumples, or spend more time out on the sea ice exploring the cliffs and crevasses. The first group left last week, unfortunately the weather hasn't been very kind to them so far but hopefully they'll get to do some exploring over the next couple of days.

Off to see the neighbours

2006-08-13T11:20:00.000Z

The main theme of the last few weeks has been penguins, as this is the time of year when we get to go down and visit the local colony. This involves a short snocat ride to Windy Creek, one of our local holiday spots, then a walk to the edge of the ice shelf before abseiling down to the sea ice. Initially, however, I was worried that there wouldn't be any trips at all. Simon and Andy went down first to check out the condition of the abseil point and the sea ice to ensure it would be safe for everyone else. Protocol dictates that whenever anyone goes down to the sea ice they radio the base to inform us that they're going down, and to get the latest weather information. Simon and Andy radioed to say that they were heading down, so we got on with our day and waited for them to call in to confirm that they were back up. And we waited. And we waited. And people started checking watches, and looking keenly at the temperature and wind speed monitors. And after it got to a few hours after their scheduled call time, and we were just on the verge of setting in motion our Search and Rescue procedures, we happily spotted skidoo headlights on the horizon. As it turns out they had a run of bad luck with radio batteries, which seem to last no time at all in the cold down here, and of course had been perfectly fine all day, but it served to remind us just how dependent we are upon each other down here, and just how quickly things could all go horribly wrong.

A couple of days after those initial checks I got the opportunity to go on a penguin trip. This involved a fairly early start to pack bags, make a packed lunch, and load a sledge with spare clothing, tents, camping gear, and enough food to feed several armies in case we found ourselves trapped by the weather for any length of time. With seven of us packed rather cosily into a snocat we headed off to Windy. On arrival we got ourselves togged up in climbing harnesses, attached to which were all manner of clips, karabiners, jumar devices, ropes and assorted jangly things.

Everything you need for a day out at the seaside

Having doubled our bodyweight with equipment we then roped up for the walk to the cliff edge. There is a small risk of people disappearing down crevasses when walking close to the edge of the ice shelf, so we travelled in two groups, attached to each other by rope. The abseil down to the sea ice wasn't as bad as I had feared as the snow being blown off the ice shelf had formed a ramp down to the bottom so we were effectively just walking backwards down a slope.

Brian prepares to abseil down to the sea ice

Simon pointed out various features and potential dangers of the sea ice on the walk over to the colony, and it was very strange to think that just a metre or so below our feet was the icy cold water of the Weddell Sea. We'd seen the penguin colony as a black blob in the distance when we abseiled down, but now up close we could see there were several thousand birds all huddled together in a group. At first they seemed determined to ignore us, but once we'd settled down and sat still for a while some of them came over to check out the visitors. The best tactic for getting close to a penguin seems to be to lie still and let them come to you, as any movement on our part soon had them scurrying back to the safety of the group. On this occasion all the penguins were males, dutifully looking after their eggs as the females were all away feeding, so they moved around quite slowly, trying not to dislodge the egg balanced precariously on their feet. We've probably all seen penguins at the zoo, splashing about in a pool or behind glass in a temperature controlled environment, but to see so many of them this close in their natural habitat was like being on a nature documentary, but without the annoying voice-over. I think if penguins ever write an encyclopaedia the entry for humans will definitely make mention of their one small eye and one really big strangely shaped eye, the easiest way to tell them apart being if their big eye is labelled Canon or Nikon.

The penguin skyline

They seemed unimpressed with the new friend I brought for them

"I wonder if it's edible?"

The snow blows off the ice shelf on the sea ice forming interesting shapes

After about an hour and several thousand photos (the joys of digital photography) with the penguins we headed back across the sea ice for the climb back up to the top. This proved rather trickier than the descent even with the aid of the rope, the main problem being that as soon as you kicked a foot hold in the snow and tried to haul yourself up the snow just crumbled away beneath you, sending you slithering back down. Eventually we all managed to get back up and headed back to the snocat for the trip home. All in all it was a fantastic day, not in the sense that anything particularly dramatic happened, but just the chance to get off base for a while, see some scenery, and see some wildlife other than the 15 people you live with.

I've since been on a second trip down to see the colony, the main difference on the second occasion being that some chicks had hatched and could be seen poking their heads out from under parents brood pouches.

The advance guard were sent to meet us on the second trip.

A baby chick pokes his head out for a look

"What do you think of it so far?"

"You ain't seen me. Roight?"

Me and some new friends

The other big event of late has been the return of the sun. You may remember that Liz, as oldest member on base, had the privilege of lowering our Union Flag when the sun disappeared over the horizon back at the end of April, so Kirsty as youngest person got to raise the new one for sunup. Unfortunately it was rather cloudy on the 10th so we didn't actually see the sun until the following day, the top of the disc just peeping over the horizon to the north, but already we seem to have much more light throughout the day. You get used to the seasons changing quite slowly back at home but here it seems a very quick transition from 24 hour daylight to 24 hour darkness and back again.

Kirsty raises the new flag over the Laws building.

First glimpse of the sun over the horizon

With the increased light comes the opportunity to get all those outdoor jobs done that are impractical during the weeks of darkness. We've been out raising the drum lines which mark our perimeter boundary and show the way to the cabooses on the coast, I've been attempting to reattach an HF aerial which got broken in the high winds, and sledges which have been slowly getting buried in the snow have been coaxed in to a new position via the application of a bulldozer and winch. One of the harder sledges to shift was the Halley 6 sledge, which was brought down over the summer to test the design for the new Halley base due to replace this one in the next couple of years. The last attempt to move it resulted in a snapped winch cable, so this time we employed two dozers, 5 shovel wielding people and an entire afternoon which eventually saw it give in and slide grudgingly a few feet forward.

A very buried sledge

Finally persuaded to move

The kiting fanatics have also seized the opportunity to get out again when the contrast is good, and a few of us have been out skiing as well. On the indoor entertainment front the Halley band is coming on in leaps and bounds, we now have quite a few songs in our repertoire, despite limited equipment resources.

Improvised drum kit

We've also had another couple of birthdays. Bob our generator mechanic turned 40, which was celebrated with cake and champagne, and a weekend party where everyone had to come as a famous person called Bob. As usual some excellent costumes, the highlight for me being the newly formed Halley bobsleigh team. Kirsty turned 22 as well, so Vicki made an enormous pyramid of fairy cakes and candles, most of which disappeared very quickly.

L-R: Bob Holness, Robert Plant, Bobby Ewing, Blackadder Bob, Bob Marley, Bob the Builder, Bobby Charlton, Bob Marley II, someone who's been robbed, Bob a Job boy, Birthday Bob, Chris

Front: Bobsleigh Team

I've just started another week of nights so it's back to nightly weather observations, cleaning and maybe a bit of baking if I'm feeling brave.

Is it a bird, is it a plane......

2006-07-28T16:59:00.000Z

Sometimes it's good to remind yourself that you're special. With that in mind, we decided to have a Superheroes evening were everyone came as their favourite superhero or villain. As usual there was a great turnout of costumes, ranging from well known characters to the more esoteric, and the completely made up. As I was on gash duty that day my costume was a bit last minute, and some of the more interactive elements didn't get included unfortunately. I won't give away too much about my outfit, suffice to say it's tricky eating a posh dinner at the table when your udder keeps getting in the way......

The Halley Superheroes. Protecting the Antarctic from evil.

On the Monday after that Liz and Vicki decided to make our lives a misery by recovering the pool table. Normally this would be a good thing, and it was well in need of doing, but we'd only just got used to the old cloth. To say it had some eccentricities would be an understatement, but it was always hugely entertaining trying to judge the strength of shot needed to get up the 1 in 3 slope to the bottom corner pocket, and the feeling of satisfaction as you watched your opponents ball settle into a large divot on the table was rarely surpassed. Now of course we are all having to relearn our game and it's not easy. Well that's my excuse for my recent appalling form and I'm sticking to it.

Next month will hopefully see us going out to Windy Creek to visit the local penguin colony. As a prelude to that we have been brushing up on our rope skills, so we've all had a session with Simon using a z-pulley system to rescue each other from the treacherous crevasses that lurk in the lounge, and then another one abseiling off the Simpson platform and jumaring back up again. Having had to be lowered down by Simon twice due to rope entanglements I finally managed a proper descent, and he assured me that the total cock up on the first two attempts wasn't entirely my fault. Good to know........ Simon also gave us a talk on the perils of sea-ice as this is what we'll be walking on when we go down to see our black and white friends. I don't think I'll have a career with a mountain rescue team anytime soon but hopefully I''ll remember enough to keep myself and whoever I'm attached to out of trouble.

Alex hanging around under the Simpson building

Last Thursday was Mark's birthday so we've had a good excuse for some celebrations. Vicki made him an excellent cake in the shape of a guitar, complete with strings. (After much mucking about with strawberry shoelaces it was decided that piping the strings on with icing was by far the simplest method.) Then on the Saturday Mark invited us all to a very exclusive night club in his workshop, which was decked out complete with lights, sound system, multimedia wall displays, and even a microphone for karaoke moments!

The weather has been fairly consistently cold lately, which is not a problem as we're all well wrapped up, and it also opens up new possibilities, such as frozen hair sculptures. Most of us don't really have enough but Kirsty and Vicki ventured out onto the platform, and after dangling wet hair upside down for a while created some impressively wild hairstyles, with Kirsty managing the best impression of someone being electrocuted.

Vicki goes for the windswept look

Kirsty after seeing her bar bill

On the work front, there's been more catenary and balun raising on various masts and aerials, preparation of field radios for the upcoming trips, and some anti-virus niggles to sort out. A few of us have also been in the garage giving Anto a hand servicing a snocat, so hopefully it won't break down on the way to Windy.

"Looks like your left hand throggle mulch flange is a bit worn"

A bit bigger than the one on the Scim

Hopefully my next update will include some shots of the local wildlife. In the meantime a couple of pictures of the Laws looking dramatic against the night sky.

Snow, sledges and stitches

2006-07-12T22:11:00.000Z

After the midwinter week of excess it was almost a relief to get back to the routine of working life again. Almost. The last bit of the midwinter week was the photo competition, which was won by Nic with an excellent photo of two skiers heading into the sun, but there were several other good pictures in there as well. After that I decided to ease into the week by having a tidy up of the office, not that you'd tell by looking at it now. I also reacquainted myself with the gym to try and work off all the excellent food and drink, and I was on melt tank duty for a week which always seems to burn off the calories, although I usually use that as an excuse to eat more. I think I've spotted a flaw in my plan.

Photo competition entries

The compact Halley gym, Chris in action

We've had a couple more impressive blows recently, with winds up around 50 knots, so once again handlines have been the only way to get between buildings as visibility is about zero. One of these blows resulted in one of the HF aerials becoming detached from the cable back to the Comms Office so I've been out trying to fix that. As well as high winds we've had much more snow accumulation than normal this year so things are getting buried much more quickly, including masts. All the masts are held upright by stays, like big metal guy ropes, and these have adjustable turnbuckles in them so we can reduce the tension on the stay as it builds up due to getting buried. This also means we need to raise the turnbuckles every now and then, so Jules and I have been out doing that on the Comms masts. This involves clamping a ratchet device called a chain hoist onto the stay to maintain the tension while we take out the turnbuckle, add a new section of steel rope, then put the turnbuckle back higher up. Next job will be raising the catenaries, which are bits of steel rope suspended between posts that keep all the cables off the ground.

The problem - an almost buried turnbuckle

Attaching the chain hoist

Turnbuckle removed, extra length of stay ready to go on

Reattaching the turnbuckle

The finished article, and a cold looking Jules

On the leisure side we've decided we're all going to be rock stars and have started a band. Our first couple of rehearsals have gone pretty well, and we've rattled off a handful of numbers. It was a bit of a squeeze as there are a lot of multi talented people down here so there were 9 of us in the gym. So far lead vocals have been shared by Simon and Andy, guitars by Andy, Mark, John and Vicki, backing vocals by Vicki and Fran, who's also played violin, percussion by me and Simon, Alex is on keyboards and Nic on bass. All we need now is a couple of venues to play and an audience.

We've also been honing our knotting and lashing skills again. Wooden Nansen sledges are still the preferred method of hauling loads over long distances down here, usually towed behind a skidoo. These are essentially made up of lots of bits of wood held together by string and bits of leather, but seem incredibly sturdy all the same. Simon had all the requisite parts to make a new one from the ground up so we've had a communal sledge building session over a couple of days. It's a very rare limited edition signature model as we've all put our names on it. Luckily we didn't have to sign on the bits we did as there may be future recriminations if it falls apart in the middle of a trip.

How the sledge starts out

Joints held together with string

Nearing completion

Ready for action

Doc school has been getting ever more practical lately, after looking at burns and how to treat them, we gave each other numb fingers in order to practise our anaesthetising techniques, and this week we've been stitching wounds. We didn't have to injure ourselves in the name of science however, as we we were able to try our hand at stitching on pigskin. Probably just as well given the hash I made of most of it....

In true Blue Peter style, this is what you'll need

Injecting the anaesthetic. The patient was very calm throughout.....

Functional rather than pretty stitches

Bob making it look easy

Midwinter

2006-06-25T15:57:00.000Z

Well now that we're coming to the end of our Midwinter week here I've finally got a chance to sit down and tell you what's been going on. The last couple of weeks have been full of preparations for midwinter, which becomes our alternative Christmas as it's the coldest darkest part of the year, and we missed Christmas proper as we were in the middle of relief. As a result the workshops have become the most popular places on base, full of people cutting, polishing, varnishing, welding, breaking, swearing, crying, and starting all over again. The pain was worth it though as there were some truly amazing creations, but more of that later.

Since I last wrote we've been doing our best to maintain a thin veneer of normality amongst anticipation of festivities to come. Various bits of IT equipment have done their best to maintain the status quo by failing at inopportune moments, but luckily nothing insurmountable. I've also been out and about with Jules checking the comms masts. Jules is Winter Mast Officer, so it's his responsibility to ensure none of them fall down, which involves checking the tension in the stays and making sure nothing gets buried by the snow. On the social side we've had another couple of inter-base darts matches, managing a win against Rothera, but sadly losing 2-0 to KEP. These webcam matches provide a great opportunity to get everyone together in the bar, as even the self proclaimed non-players get up for their shot, and a chance to swap gossip with the other bases and remind ourselves that we're not entirely alone down here, and there is life outside our 1km comfort zone.

Simon lines up for a shot

Having lived within the confines of a 1km diameter circle for 7 months now you'd think we'd know our way about, but I very nearly got lost a couple of times while helping out on the gash run. All our waste is put out onto a platform outside the front door of the building, and then when that gets full it's all craned onto a sledge and towed out to various dump lines around base, awaiting export when the ship comes. I was gainfully employed as dozer driver and crane operator 2nd class, but sadly my navigation skills nearly let me down. It's fairly tricky driving in the dark when it's snowing at home. Now imagine doing it with no street lights and a flat white landscape, trying to locate two bamboo poles with flags on which you know are out there somewhere. Except they're not because the flags have blown off in the wind. Nevertheless we managed to get everything done, and didn't break any sledges this time so all in all a successful day.

Starting the dozer. Never again will I complain about de-icing the car.

In the last week before midwinter the base takes on something of an end of term feel as decorations start to go up and activities are organised for the week ahead. In Doc School Vicki arranged a couple of scenarios to test our knowledge, which we managed to get through without quite killing anybody, although the acting of the 'patients' was very realistic at times. Simon also ran a class in rope splicing and whipping, so we spent an enjoyable afternoon joining bits of rope together. I celebrated the end of the week by raising some catenaries, which are poles that carry cables out to the aerials and satellite dome to ensure they don't get buried by the snow.

Artistically spliced and whipped ropes

After the end of the working week it was time to get down to the important business of midwinter celebration. We had many events planned over the week, and Bob kicked us off on Saturday with a fascinating slide show of various pictures from his previous jobs working on yachts. As far as I can tell he's spent many tough years photographing female crewmates and climbing masts in order to get a better vantage point from which to take photos. Sunday was a marathon film day, having all voted on a film shortlist the final programme was It's a Wonderful Life, To Kill a Mockingbird, A Very Long Enagement, Life of Brian, and Muppet Christmas Carol. I managed valiantly to watch all five films, only one of which I'd seen before.

Monday saw the pool competition and many a cue chalked in earnest. Sadly I was knocked out in the first round, but the rest of the competition proved fascinating. The girls all did incredibly well, dominating all the rounds, with the final being between Kirsty and Fran. Fran emerged victorious, but then again she has been down here a year longer than everyone else so has had much more practise. During the day Simon unveiled the winter magazine which he has been putting together for the last few weeks. This is another tradition down here, each year the wintering team puts together a magazine to reflect what's gone on and try and embarrass as many people as possible. This years superb effort had something of a football theme, reflecting Simon's love of the game and probably also relating to that World Cup thing which apparently is going on at the moment. Tuesday included a 2 hour yoga session, after which we all felt slightly disjointed but very flexible. This proved an excellent warm up to the evening darts match against KEP.

Then came the big day. Wednesday June 21st was midwinters day in the Antarctic. Tradition dictated that John the Base Commander had to offer to deliver everyone tea and coffee in bed. I decided to decline the offer, but was up in time for an excellent brunch with Bucks Fizz to start the day. A few of us hardy souls (idiots?) decided that a naked run round the building would be the perfect way to celebrate the day, so ventured out for a brisk trot round the Laws at -40 degrees...... This wasn't actually as bad as I was expecting, and certainly blew away the cobwebs. After that we relaxed by watching The Thing, almost as scary as the sight of us circumnavigating the building but not quite. For the evening meal everyone dressed up in their best posh togs and met up for a pre prandial G & T. Nic the Chef prepared us an absolutely incredible 5 course feast and we all duly stuffed ourselves silly.

And they're off!

Table ready for the midwinter meal

After all the lovely food it was all we could manage to walk through to the lounge for the present giving. At last the waiting was over and we got to see the fruits of all those hours spent labouring away. I had drawn Vicki's name out of the hat and after much welding, metal bending and fiddling with bits of coke can I managed to produce a miniature samba drum with a model of the base on top. As coincidence would have it Vicki picked my name out of the hat so I received a lovely patchwork wall hanging of the view up from the bottom of a crevasse. There are obviously some very talented craftspeople on base as all the presents were fantastic, and very original, providing an excellent memento of our time here. After the presents it was time to sit round the wireless. Every year on the World Service there is a special Antarctic Midwinter Broadcast where friends and family can leave messages, so we had the HF radio piped through to the stereo and had half an hour listening to voices from home. If you're interested you can listen to the broadcast here

Presents all wrapped and ready

The result of Anto's expert welding tuition, and a large hammer

A not quite to scale model of Halley

Patchwork quilt on display at Halley Art Gallery

Midwinter presents on display

After the excesses of midwinter, Thursday was understandably a fairly low key affair. I successfully slept through most of Dr Zhivago and in the evening Simon hosted a quiz. Friday night was games night, consisting of Twister, Mafia and Balderdash and Pictionary. We also had another cocktail night, having fun making Antarctic creations, which tasted surprisingly good actually. Saturday night was an opportunity for more talents to come to the fore as we had the Halley Cabaret Night. There was lots of music, singing, poetry and sketches, but for me the highlight of the evening was Liz sawing Andy in half. I've often wondered how magicians do this trick and now that I've seen it performed in my own front room I can safely sayI still have no idea.

Bob aka Johnny Cash, with backing band

"Always look on the bright side of life"

Liz starts off with the power tools......

......but reverts to more traditional methods

Andy didn't feel a thing

As I write we await the result of the Photo Competition, and that will bring to a close our week of festivities as we return to work refreshed tomorrow, looking forward to seeing the sun again in a couple of months.

Into the dark

2006-05-28T15:10:00.000Z

Has it really been a month since I last wrote anything? What on earth have I been up to? Well for starters it's got really rather dark down here. We had our Sundown ceremony, where the oldest person on base (despite her youthful looks this turned out be Liz the chippie), lowers the Union Jack flag that flies over the main building. After the formalities had been dealt with, the only sensible option at -40 seemed to be a barbecue. Brian and Nicola braved the elements to cook burgers, steaks and sausages, which were very tasty for about 5 minutes until they froze to the plate. The silly thing is I'm sure -2 in England feels much colder than -40 down here. We also had a cocktail party on Sundown weekend and had great fun making some interesting concoctions, most of which were drinkable. The term sundown is a bit misleading, and there seem to be any number of differing definitions, but we've still had 3 or 4 hours of usable light per day for most of the month, although there's noticeably less now.

Liz lowers the rather tattered flag

Cooking al fresco

Most people have been hidden away working on winter presents lately. For midwinter there is a tradition that everyone draws a name from a hat, then makes a present for that person. I'd like to say my idea is fully formed and nearing completion but that would be a lie, however I'm confident I'll have something ready for mid June. On a related note I've had some welding tuition from Anto our mechanic. Fran and I had an entertaining evening fusing various bits of metal together, some of it intentional, and we didn't blow the garage up so all in all a great success. Things are continuing on the educational theme, with Vicki running Doc school where we've learned all about breathing, circulation, how to do an emergency tracheotomy, how to insert venflons and take blood, and how to make Jules faint. I don't think the last bit was in the original syllabus but it gave us a handy chance to practice the recovery position. I've also started doing Spanish lessons this month so there are lots of people thpeaking in thtrange acthenths and repeatedly asking each other how many brothers and sisters they have. Guitar, yoga, samba and bridge clubs are still ongoing as well. All we need to do now is find a way to combine them all.

Fran gets busy with the MIG

Jules shortly before closer examination of the floor

Obviously with less light during the day we've had curb our skiing and kiting activities and turn to alternative indoor methods of keeping fit, a good example being our darts match with Bird Island base. In the past this has been done over HF radio, but we thought we'd modernise it a bit, so thanks to the wonders of laptops, webcams and MSN Messenger we had a tense match, narrowly won by Bird Island, who celebrated the win with a barbecue (outside in daylight and positive temperatures, the big girly poofs). Next challengers are Rothera so we're on a strict regime of beer drinking and speaking in Geordie accents to try and get a winning result. Rather more active than the darts was Club Nido, where the garage is turned into an impromptu nightclub, made all the better by a lack of surly bouncers and not having to pay £5 for a bottle of water. The frenetic dancing (mainly by other people) was interspersed with games of Twister, keeping up the Olympic theme. The walk home was exciting as the wind had picked up dramatically over the course of the evening and by the time we left it was about 50 knots. Luckily we have ropes between buildings to guide the way but even so it was a bit daunting trying to navigate while being constantly buffeted and barely able to see your hand in front of your face.

The Halley version of the Hokey Cokey

Lately things have been returning to the old days. We had no internet or phones for four days due to work being done at Cambridge so there were a few people looking rather lost, and this weekend we've had a FIDS theme evening. The dining room was decked out with a pair of snow shoes and a dog sledge, everyone dressed up as gnarly old Antarctic heroes, or cats according to preference, and we had reel to reel cine films and slide shows, although sadly we couldn't get the record player working (for any youngsters reading, CDs used to be black and much, much bigger and you could play them at different speeds).

Ah, there you are Carruthers

Scattered showers in the south

2006-04-29T16:04:00.000Z

The weather is playing an ever increasingly important part in our lives these days. We have various instruments here that measure temperature, pressure, wind speed and direction, and the output from these can be viewed on a PC, so we usually have a couple of screens around the base constantly updating this information. Often you'll see people looking anxiously at the weather monitor to see if it's suitable to go outside, climb a mast, go kiting, or just sit inside and hide from the elements. We've seen winds up around 50 knots and temperatures down to about -40C in the last couple of weeks, which means you have to think much more carefully about what you're going to wear if you venture out. Overalls and a hat just aren't enough any more, so it's extra neck protectors, balaclavas, goggles, fur hats, insulated boots, two pairs of gloves and enormous goosedown jackets these days. It may take you 5 minutes to get dressed before you go out but it's certainly worth it. Even the breath inside your balaclava freezes, and touching anything metal seems to suck the warmth out of you. We can't complain though, this is the reason most of us came down here, to experience something different, and it's a lovely feeling to be in the nice warm bar in the evening when blowing snow outside makes visibility about 10 feet and the building is shaking. On the other hand, we do get some incredibly beautiful sunrises and sunsets, and weather phenomena that you just don't see at home like sundogs and diamond dust. We've also had our first glimpses of aurora, a faint whitish green light moving eerily in the sky. I tried to get a few photos but I think I need to read the camera manual a bit more to get better results.

The view from my office window

Snow and rime covers everything now

I've also had my first week of nights this month. Every week someone is allocated night duty, it's mainly a safety thing, making sure someone is up and alert overnight to listen out for alarms and ensure the building doesn't burn down. Nightshift also involves a few cleaning duties, and breadmaking. This was something very new for me, but with the aid of an industrial mixer and some very detailed instructions I managed to produce some loaves and rolls, and even criossants! Just call me Delia. It's quite strange having the whole building to yourself once everyone has gone to bed, but it's nice to get some time on your own, which isn't always easy here as we all live and work together. Luckily there were no disasters during my watch, just a couple of science alarms which were easily fixed by Jules, and some exciting weather. Nightwatch also has to make a weather observation at 3am, making note of cloud cover, visibility, and any fog or snow that might be around.

Night chef hard at work

The final results

Other than that it's been fairly normal lately. (Now there's a worrying thought, when did I start to consider this as normal?) Simon has started giving yoga classes so I'm aching in places I never knew I had, I've had a go at playing bridge, the samba band is progressing in leaps and bounds, Mark has been giving guitar lessons, and I think I'm due to start Spanish lessons next week, been out skiing a couple of times. It was my turn to cook again on Thursday, which I didn't realise until the day before, so hurriedly raided Nicola's collection of cook books for easy recipes. I managed to knock up home made burgers for lunch, and a casserole for dinner so luckily no-one starved. The only slight blot in my copybook is managing to break the towing eye on one of the crane sledges (obviously a faulty design, couldn't possibly have been my fault), but Anto has fixed it already so I think I can relax again.

All wrapped up.....

.....heading into the sunset

We're all going on a.........

2006-04-04T20:38:00.000Z

Well unfortunately our winter trip didn't entirely work out. For the first couple of days the weather wasn't too good, so we did a bit of training with Simon, which mostly involving abseiling down the lounge and pretending someone had fallen in a crevasse, then trying to remember what we had learned on the field course before we came away. In my case not much. We also practised jumaring in the garage, which involves climbing a rope with the aid of various clever mechanical devices. Having done our best to remember how to tie knots the weather was still rotten so we occupied ourselves by building an igloo. This was quite fun, first we cleared a pit area, then set about digging up blocks of snow. These are actually surprisingly strong, especially if the temperatures have been a bit low as the snow becomes much more solid. As it turned out we were a little ambitious in our igloo size initially, and suffered a few collapses, so the MkI was abandoned for a smaller version. This went much better and we had a laid a good few courses of blocks on the first day. Sadly the temperatures got up overnight and next day we had an igloo that looked more like a Gaudi building as one side had melted and half collapsed. We made a go of salvaging the project and things were looking good for a finished building, although we didn't get a chance to finish as we finally got to go away.

Early stages of construction

Nearing completion

By now the weather was showing no signs of improvement to allow us to go on our trip so instead Vicki suggested we go to Windy Caboose for a couple of days. This was met with approval so off we went. A caboose is basically a small shed on skis, fitted with a little paraffin burning stove and some bunks, meaning we wouldn't have to try and put tents up in 25 knot winds. So Vicki, Andy and I got three days off base at Windy, which was very relaxing, and almost the proper Antarctic camping experience as food was cooked on Primus, we were lit by Tilly and we went to the toilet outside. Windy is near the coast so we strolled down to look at the sea ice and saw a few penguins in the distance, in between strenuous bouts of reading, drinking hot chocolate and having a very intense Ludo game.

Our chalet by the sea

The brochure said full self catering facilities.......

The intrepid winter trippers

We headed back to base in time for the weekend, but that didn't mean time off as I was on gash. We don't have the luxury of maids down here so every day one person is on cleaning duties and Saturday was my turn. This involves cleaning the communal areas and toilets, setting the table for meals, washing up the chef's stuff and doing a bit of laundry. Hopes of a peaceful nights rest after my exertions were dashed as the fire alarm went off at about 3:30am, which means everybody has to get up. I ended up being a runner, whose job is to go to the area indicated by the fire alarm and make an initial assessment. In this instance it was the garage so three of us headed over to investigate. Meanwhile the rest of the base would have been up having a roll call and getting breathing apparatus on in case anyone needed rescuing. Happily it was a false alarm as there was no sign of a fire, so after resetting the alarm we returned. Sunday didn't offer a chance for a lie in either as it was my turn to cook. In order to allow Nicola the chef a couple of days off a week we have a rota for us mere mortals to try our hands in the kitchen. So far the results have been very impressive so I was keen to provide a decent spread. Lunch consisted of a fairly traditional fry up, so not too many problems there. For dinner I decided to try and do tapas, hoping to be able to provide some variety. When you're used to cooking for a few people at home it's very difficult to suddenly up the quantities and try and cater for 16. I'm not sure I quite got it all right, but there were no reported cases of food poisoning the next day and some people even went back for seconds so I'll count that as a success. Next time it might be beans on toast.......

Other jobs lately have ranged from dental nurse (both patient and doctor seemed most put out that the outfit provided didn't fit me), through Comms (an intermittent satellite problem and a trip onto the roof to screw down an errant wireless dish), drum raiser (digging out and repositioning the empty drums that mark the perimeter of the base), to Waste assistant (craning lots of rubbish off the Laws platform and moving it to various locations).

After our first month of solitude things are going well and we're all still enjoying ourselves. Days are getting noticeably shorter now, soon it'll be dark.......

Trying to play a fife.
It looks impressive but there wasn't actually any sound coming out.

Splosh

2006-03-17T16:47:00.000Z

So now that there are just 16 of us here for the winter it's time to really get to know each other. And what better way to do that than to try and get everyone into a 5ft by 5ft tank of water. I'm not sure we got everyone in at once bet there were about 13 of us at one point all enjoying the Melt Tank Party. The Drewry building is only used in the summer, and as part of the shutdown process all the snow in the melt tank is, well, melted. It's quite a strange feeling being in a nice warm bath while your hair freezes from the -10 degree air. Luckily we had lights and music and the odd bottle of wine to fend of the cold, so a fun evening was had by all.

Come on in the water's lovely

The Drewry has now been all but emptied, as it has no heating over winter so anything left inside will freeze. Among the other jobs we've been doing in preparation for winter are various bits of outdoor work. First on the list was removal of the skiway. Unlike Rothera we don't have the luxury of a solid runway here so every year a length of snow is groomed and marked out to enable aircraft to land. This is marked out with empty oil drums, which are removed using a sort of wild west lasso method. A snocat with trailer is driven along the line of drums, with one person on the trailer with a strop which is dropped over the barrel as we pass, pulling the barrel out of the snow as we drive off. So I spent an hour or so driving 10 yards at a time while the team on the trailer unearthed and loaded the drums. My other driving duties recently have involved a crane and a bulldozer, as we've been sorting out waste wood and metal, and stacking sledges for winter storage. I had a brief moment of panic last month as I tried to track down some printer paper. Having checked the Comms container and found no paper at all I was envisaging a winter spent tippexing old sheets of A4 and cutting all our A3 in half, until John suggested I look in the Stationery cupboard. He's not Winter Base Commander for nothing you know.

Bob the Builder

The first of the winter trips have been away recently. This is our first official holiday and a chance to do the rufty tufty polar hero camping bit. Simon takes away groups of 3 people to the imaginatively named 2nd Chasm, where they indulge in walking, abseiling, rope work and falling into crevasses. I'm due to head out next week so quite excited, although looking at the weather forecast I may be in for a rufty tufty week spent reading books in a tent.

On the social side it's been quite a busy couple of weeks. We celebrated Fran's birthday with a children's party, much balloon blowing and party games and some very, erm, imaginative costumes. Simon our erudite GA hosted a quiz night, and most recently we celebrated Nicola's birthday, which coincided with St Patricks night so a good excuse to get out the penny whistles and the fiddle and have some diddly dee music. I've also finally had a go at kiting, well almost. Kiting has become a very popular sport down here in recent years, whereby you get a very large kite and let it pull you along on skis or a snowboard. Halley is an ideal location as it's pretty windy, but very flat and there's plenty of open space. I've got as far as flying a kite but haven't yet tried the next stage. As I've never skiied or boarded before it could be quite entertaining when I do.

Halley Base - Average age 7 3/4

Back to base

2006-03-03T15:11:00.000Z

Once back at Rothera it was nice to be able to get on and do things, so I managed to keep myself busy helping the Comms guys laying some cables and sorting through some maps. Some of the older maps of Antarctica are hugely entertaing, consisting of nothing more than a blank sheet of gridlines, with perhaps one line where a sledge party travelled in 1956. Some are more detailed though and it was interesting to get an idea of the geography of the continent, and also realise just how much of it has never been seen. Rothera was quite busy with field parties starting to pack up and return, and also a few other visitors such as a DC3 full of Russians, a helicopter from a German ship, a yacht with a Canadian film crew, and the BAS ship James Clark Ross.

DC3 landing at Rothera International Airport

Enjoyable though Rothera was, I was keen to get back home to Halley and see everyone, so was quite glad when, despite winds and overnight snow, Ian the pilot announced that we'd be heading out. The flight itself was quite long, 6 hrs at about 12000 feet with mostly cloud to look at. When we arrived at Halley I was flattered to see that a small crowd had turned out to say hello. It wasn't until we were taxiing that I realised it was the samba band, drums and all, who were playing to welcome me back. It was a really fantastic way to return, and the guys had a done an excellent job of learning a new number while I was away with Alex at the helm. I fear I may soon be redundant as mestre..... Luckily I had come home on the day that there was a planned BBQ and Club Nido night in the garage, so after saying hello to everyone it was straight into burgers curry and beer!

Samba band at the skiway

I'd hate you to think it's all a life of leisure down here though, and as I'd been away for a month and there was only a week until the ship arrived to take people away there was plenty to do. Mike the outgoing Comms manager had been having some problems with the satellite system while I was away so was keen to go through the shutdown and startup procedures, and Richard from the IT department at Cambridge had been performing a server upgrade so there was plenty to show me there. Hopefully we managed to cram enough into the week so I can look after everything over the winter. No doubt I'll discover the gaps in my knowledge as soon as something breaks.

The last week of summer seems to be a flurry of people packing, trying to finish all their summer work, handing over winter work, saying goodbye, and generally panicking that things haven't been done. As a result it was almost eerie when the base suddenly became very quiet. Once the aircraft had left, most of the outgoing people left on one day, out to the ship in a caravan of seven snocats, along with several winterers who were driving the cats back again, so we went from having about 40 people on base to having 8. Without wishing to speak ill of those leaving base, as they've all been wonderful to work with, it was a nice feeling to finally be left with just the 16 of us, our family until October or November when we next see anyone.

The last plane gives a flypast of the Simpson building before leaving

There are several traditions that have grown around life in the Antarctic. One of these is that the outgoing winterers leave little booby traps for the incoming people. We discovered the first when we found that the melt tank was blocked. The melt tank is our water source. Snow is shovelled into a chute that leads down underground to a tank where it is melted to provide all the water for the base. In this instance we found that it was blocked with about 9 metres of snow, which took four of us two and a half hours of shovelling, poking, chipping and swearing to clear. Oh how we laughed.

One tradition that unfortunately we weren't able to take part in due to bad weather is that of waving the ship off at last call, which would have been a fine excuse to go and let some flares off at the edge of the ice shelf. Another tradition that we definitely managed however, is a meal to celebrate the beginning of winter. After a few pre-prandial G & Ts in the bar we were treated to an incredible feast from Nicola our chef, tortillas with a selection of dips to start, steak for main course, and as it was Shrove Tuesday, pancakes to finish. Then back to the bar to celebrate our independence and sample some of the contents of the winter bond. This then led on to one of the newer Antarctic traditions, that of new and exciting haircuts. Possibly it was a mistake when Jules and Kirsty suggested I have a trim at three in the morning, but it seemed a fine idea at the time, and I'm pleased with the result. Some of you will know that I'm no stranger to wierd and wonderful barnets, however those with a weak constitution may wish to look away......

Sorry Mum. That's Jules on the right, it's all his fault.

Planes, penguins, and dentist's chairs

2006-02-12T18:06:00.000Z

Having reacquainted myself with Stanley I was soon in the dentist's chair. There's only one hospital in town, and it includes the dentist, optician and pharmacy. The dentist did a better x-ray of the teeth and concluded that there was indeed a fracture so it would be best to go for an extraction. At the time he suggested the tooth would be replaced with a bridge, effectively a false tooth stuck to the ones either side. Unfortunately when I went back a week later he'd changed his mind and decided to replace it with a denture, meaning I would be having to take it out at night. In the event the tooth came out fairly easily, due to it having been dead for quite a few years, and the whole thing was done inside an hour. I was pleasantly surprised that once the anaesthetic had worn off it wasn't too painful either. I'm still getting used to the denture, but it was the best thing to do rather than run the risk of things getting infected in the middle of winter.

The things some people will do for a trip out

I managed to keep myself busy for the rest of my 10 day stay in Stanley. Some of the guys from Halley had asked me get various things for them so I had a fun time scouring all the shops. There were a couple of cruise ships in over the week as well. As Stanley is a small place, with a population of just a couple of thousand, when a large cruise ship visits which might be carrying about a thousand passengers, this makes a huge difference. Everyone in Stanley always seems pleased to see visitors though, and most people are happy to stop and chat and point out various sights in the town. Quite a few of the locals act as tour guides too, taking people to see wildlife, or the battle sites from the 1982 conflict.

Given it's size there is a surprising amount of variety and things to do in and around Stanley. I managed to get to the museum and Cartmell Cottage, both providing a fascinating insight into the history of both people and wildlife in the area. The maritime history of the town is very evident from the multitude of shipwrecks that still lie in the waters around Stanley, most of which I saw on a walk out to Gypsy Cove to see a large Magellanic penguin colony. There are also more unusual sites such as the whale bone exhibition, the owner of which also has a pet reindeer in his front garden! On the social side I was invited to another two Burns celebrations, so I've done very well for haggis this year. There seem to be quite a few Scots down in the Falklands, I think the scenery must remind them of home.

Stanley pet

In order to try and get back to Halley before the end of the summer season, it was decided that I should fly over to Punta Arenas in Chile, and catch a Dash7 from there back down to Rothera. So after a short flight over I found myself in South America for the first time. Punta is quite a small city, easy enough to get round on foot. In some ways it is similar to Stanley, with lots of brightly coloured houses featuring corrugated iron roofs, although there are also larger buildings in the centre, remnants of the city's earlier success in the wool and mining trades. This area of South America is now becoming more popular with tourists, so there are plenty of bars around and bus tours out to the local attractions. We went out for a day to see a large Magellanic penguin colony, and also tried to get to the Natiohal Park, although unfortunately it was shut. Punta was also a good opportunity to get some last minute shopping, and practise my Spanish on unwitting natives.

Penguins enjoying a bath

As with most BAS related transport, weather was a key factor in the timing of our flight down to Rothera, so having missed our intended flight day due to bad weather we were all quite keen to get away the following day. Having been fast tracked through Punta airport we walked out to the Dash waiting on the apron. Unlike most commercial carriers, with BAS Airlines you get to carry your own luggage, load it onto the plane yourself, and make your own tea and coffee. However it all adds to the experience, and you also get to go and chat to the pilots and listen in on their radio conversations. We were expecting a 4 or 5 hour flight so most people had decided to get some sleep, having been up fairly late the night before. As we were awoken by loud banging noises outside the aircraft we started to focus our attention a little. Evidently we had hit some colder weather and were starting to experience some ice build up. The Dash has four propeller engines, and the props have de-icing measures built in, except on the tips which rely on centrifugal force to disperse any build up. In this instance it was dispersing rather large chunks of ice into the side of the fuselage at high speed, with disconcerting results. However we have complete faith in our pilots, and as we were less than an hour away from Rothera hoped this wouldn't be too much of a problem. Our faith was tested somewhat when it was announced that were unable to get out of the bad weather, and so would have to turn back to Punta Arenas! So after about 9 hours flying we ended up back where we had started.

The next day was deemed no good for flying, but the good news was that the pilots had spotted a weather window the following day. The bad news was that they wanted a 5am take off, meaning we had to be up at 3:30 to leave the hotel. Having weighed up the options I decided not to bother going to bed, so was a little bleary eyed when we headed back to Punta airport. We were greeted by a solitary, bemused looking security guard, but were soon back on the plane ready to go, waiting patiently for someone to switch on the runway lights..... Luckily we had an uneventful flight down and arrived safely at Rothera, although I'd only been away for 18 days it felt like much more. Our final hurdle to jump involved having our shoes checked and our clothes hoovered as part of an investigation by a couple of the scientists into alien species being brought into the Antarctic. Soon enough I was back in the canteen enjoying scones and jam, safe once more in the bosom of BAS after my brief sojourn into the Real World.

Dash7 waiting for early morning takeoff

To Rothera and beyond

2006-01-28T17:34:00.000Z

The time finally came for my flight over to Rothera. Weather is the primary factor in deciding if the plane will fly or not. Even if it looks fairly good at Halley, the pilot still has to consult satellite photos, and get weather observations from field parties to see what it's like between here and our destination. The last thing you want is to run into bad conditions and have nowhere to put down. As well as the major bases, BAS has a number of strategically placed fuel dumps in the Antarctic, enabling pilots to plan a journey. The Twin Otter generally has about five hours fuel endurance depending on load and wind speeds, but they are never run right down to empty. So in the morning Geoff our pilot had decided that conditions were good and we had enough options open on the way, and we were given the call. There were 5 passengers on the flight, and we all rushed about grabbing bags, making packed lunches, and getting ourselves out to the skiway. We then waited for about an hour for Geoff as he was still back at base checking the latest weather! Several people came out to see us off, most of the Met team, and Nathan and Tommo in the traditional Halley Hats of Farewell.

Traditional Halley headgear

As we had five passengers, quite a bit of cargo, and only one spare drum of fuel in the back we were right on the edge of our limit to get to Rothera without having to camp out somewhere overnight. At some point in the journey the pilot has to make a PNR (Point of No Return) decision, that being the last point at which we can turn and head back to base without running out of fuel. Before we took off Geoff told us that in order to save fuel we would be flying as high as possible, and the heating would be turned down to minimum in the back. Sure enough we were soon up to about 13,000 feet, well above the clouds and most of the weather, and stayed between 13 and 14,000 for the next five hours. You soon realise just how lucky you are in commercial airliners as it was pretty bloody cold up there, and after a while we started to feel a bit nauseous due to the thin air. I guess the pilots just get used to it after a while. We stopped for fuel at Fossil Bluff, although we couldn't stop to chat with the guys there as while we were fuelling a second plane pulled in behind us, so we were soon up again for the final hour and a half to Rothera. This second leg was flown a bit lower and there was some beautiful scenery. Even after only a couple of weeks at Halley it was nice to see mountains and hills again.

Refuelling at Fossil Bluff

Look! Geography!

On arrival at Rothera we were given a quick safety brief, then up to the kitchen where dinner had been saved for us. It seems the BAS rumour mill had been working overtime as everyone was expecting me to turn up with horrific facial injuries and were most disappointed when there was nothing to see. Over the next couple of days I helped out the Rothera Comms guys laying some cabling to commission a new HF aerial. While we were there the base was due to celebrate Burns Night, and I got roped into playing fiddle for the Ceilidh afterwards. The bastards asked me after I'd had a couple of beers so I was utterly defenceless. Luckily someone had a book of fiddle tunes, so after a quick afternoon rehearsal with Phil on guitar and Andy, who was going to be Caller, we decided we'd made a reasonable racket and would go ahead with it. The Burns dinner was excellent, everyone made an effort to dress up, the haggis was piped in, and after a few poems and speeches from the Scottish contingent we enjoyed a fantastic meal. After that the dining hall was cleared and we set up for the evening's entertainment. I haven't really played fiddle for a while so there was a certain amount of nerve jangling beforehand, but Andy did a great job talking everyone through the different dances, and from what I could see of the limbs flailing on the dancefloor everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.

The little known and highly advanced Beer Bottle Technique

After just four days at Rothera I was off again on the next leg up to Stanley. This was another 5 hour flight, but this time in a Dash 7 aircraft, rather more civilised than the Twin Otter, with heating and drinks facilities and everything! After getting through Stanley Passport Immigration and Customs control (one bloke with a passport stamp), we were ferried to the Upland Goose Hotel, where I'll be staying for the next couple of weeks. I ventured out in the evening to see if Stanley had changed dramatically in the last month and a half, and managed to bump into a guy from my mum's home town of Hawick, who was amazed that I'd even heard of the place. The world certainly seems to be getting much smaller lately.

Inside and out

2006-01-22T17:04:00.000Z

Despite the enormous trauma of a slightly wobbly tooth, life has continued normally, or what I imagine passes for normally down here, it's difficult to tell sometimes. I've been out and about visiting the various bits of the base to acquaint myself with all the IT and radio gear we have. I live on the Laws, the main building on base, and the Comms office is there as well. We also have Simpson and Piggott, the two science buildings, a garage, and the Drewry which is only open in the summer as extra accomodation. There are also various cargo containers around which are used as storage. I've been trying to resist the temptation to go everywhere by skidoo and have been walking between the buildings in the vain hope that it will combat the effects of all the excellent food we have on base. On one occasion I needed something from the Comms container, so decided I would walk over pulling a sledge to bring the stuff I needed. I knew it was a bit windy that day but figured it would still be OK. This where the naivety of the newcomer shows up, as not only was it windy, there was a fair bit of snow blowing about, the temperature had dropped quite a bit and the snow on the ground was knee deep. It took me nearly three quarters of an hour to walk what must be all of half a mile and I had to stop at the Drewry on the way for a bacon roll. And this is summer.....

In order to prepare us slightly better for the rigors of winter there are various stages of field training that everyone goes through, the first of which involves camping out on the perimeter of the base for a night. After an indoor session involving Primus Lighting Level One, Tent Erection for Beginners and Camp Cooking Theory 101 four of us headed out into the wilds with nothing more than two tents, two stoves, several boil in the bag meals, more bedding than I've ever seen and a highly trained instructor for protection. For field camping Pyramid tents are the preferred accomodation as they are fairly easy to put up, very stable, and offer excellent protection from the elements. Having got the tents up without too much drama we set about cooking dinner. After getting the primus alight, we filled a pan with snow, and after about half an hour Andy and I were enjoying Lamb Pilau and Chilli Con Carne a la Antarctic. Flushed with success we headed out for a lesson in how to use a field radio, then the five of us whiled away the evening chatting over a few beers, feeling very much the polar explorer. After an excellent nights sleep, blissfully ignorant of Andy's attempts to stop me snoring by throwing snow at me, we packed up the tents and headed back to the Laws as fully qualified Module2 campers, also earning the right to put our names on the list to go out as co-pilot with the Twin Otter aircraft.

Camp kitchen

5 star accommodation

Once we'd got our field training done in 20 knot winds and blowing snow, the weather naturally decided to improve greatly. However, this brings oportunities to try out new things, one of which was cross country skiing. This is my first attempt at any kind of winter sport, so it was with a certain amount of trepidation that I took up Simon's offer of a beginners lesson. Skiing looks hard enough to me when you've got a slope, but Halley being rather flat we have to resort to self propulsion just to make it harder. Apart from being unable to stand up after practising falling over, I managed fairly well skiing about happily for an hour or so, although afterwards I had a much clearer idea of why man invented the internal combustion engine. At the opposite extreme from skiing, the vehicles department ran a bulldozer driving for novices session. This proved hugely entertaining, going back and forth in a slow rattly bulldozer trying to level out snow dunes, which is actually a lot harder than the guys who do it every day make it look.

Scenic ski lesson

Less scenic D4 bulldozer

When we're not outside being hardy Antarctic heroes there's plenty to keep us occupied indoors as well. There seems to be quite a few musicians down at Halley this season, so a few of us have got together with guitars and keyboard and run through some numbers, and once Mark had found all the component parts of the PA system we had a music night in the bar, which seemed to go down well. The only possible problem is that if any more musical talent emerges from the closet we'll have more people in the band than in the audience. We've also kept ourselves amused with a Pirate party. The surgery stock of eyepatches was duly raided, as was the fancy dress box, and we had a fine evening with some excellent costumes, plenty of pieces of eight, timbers being shivered and people saying"Arrrrr!" a lot.

Learning the job......and what not to do

2006-01-15T14:34:00.000Z

After we had all recovered from the relief operation it was time to get down to learning our jobs. For those of us wintering there is someone here who has been doing our job for a year or two, so we can spend the summer doing a handover. In my case Mike, the current Comms Manager, has been very helpful, introducing me to all the various bits involved in the job, especially the radio stuff as that is all new to me, ensuring nothing will trip me up in the depths of winter. We've also got Richard here from head office doing some server upgrade work, so I get to have a hand in ensuring the IT side is OK.

Unfortunately I managed to throw a spanner in the works by injuring myself, meaning I've got to go back to the Falklands for a couple of weeks at least. It all started when I foolishly volunteered to go drum raising. Anything left lying on the snow here soon gets buried by snow as it accumulates (over a metre last year), so a lot of time is spent digging things up. In this case we were digging out a batch of a couple of hundred fuel drums. This involves clearing the snow and ice, then using a crane to get the drums out and onto a waiting sledge. Once on the sledge the drums are then heaved upright, using a metal bar device to give extra leverage as a full drum is pretty heavy. This is all well and good until the bar slips off the drum and flies up into your face resulting in a split lip and a chipped tooth. Luckily Vicky the doctor was also out working with us, so I had immediate first class healthcare. Unfortunately it appears that in the Antarctic first class healthcare means starting your own ambulance, as Vicky's skidoo was proving rather recalcitrant. To add insult to injury I was then told I couldn't wipe the blood off my face as it wouldn't look gory enough and people would think we were skiving.......

Once back at the surgery an initial assessment of the damage was made, the gist of which was "Stop whining you're alright, it's only a chipped tooth and the lip will fix itself". Having been put at my ease it was then decided that x-rays would be a good idea as the tooth might be fractured. This is where it started to get interesting. Luckily Simon our GA is an ex radiologist so was able to lend a hand. Now I'm no expert but I don't think the base x-ray machine is really designed for doing teeth, however after a lot of umming and aaahinng, drawing diagrams, working out angles and experimenting in the dark room, we had a beautifully clear image of my chin and part of my hand. It only took another 6 or 7 goes under the leather apron thoughtfully provided to get a passable image of the guilty denture, which was e-mailed off to Penny the dentist on the Shack. To cut a long story short the x-ray image has now been seen by about 6 dentists, doctors, consultants and radiologists and still there is no consensus as to whether or not there is a fracture. As a result I will be heading back to Stanley to see a dentist and get things sorted before the winter.

The image which has baffled the medical world

Regardless of my life threatening injury I have struggled manfully on with the task at hand, trying to understand what's involved in the job, playing pool and darts, and drinking my fair share of the beer ration. But it's not all sweat and toil you'll be pleased to hear, we find time for leisure activities too, more of which in the next instalment as it's now gone midnight, I'm supposed to be on a plane in the morning and I haven't packed.

Relief

2006-01-08T15:07:00.000Z

A strange name for a week of utter chaos..... Once the ship has arrived and moored up the first priority is to offload all the cargo and fresh food, and load up any recycling waste. To take maximum advantage of the 24hr daylight this involves continuous working, with everyone on 12 hour shifts, and carries on until the job is done. We were all anticipating a much longer relief than usual as the journey from N9 to Halley is about 6 hours in a snocat, so each vehicle would only make one round trip per shift. In the end it was decided to make a half way point where sledges could be left, so there were 2 snocats operating between the ship and the halfway point, and 2 operating the other half of the trip to Halley. A lot of the new drivers were very excited about getting to drive a snocat, but I think the novelty wore off fairly quickly! Luckily I was on day shift all week so didn't have to disrupt my sleep patterns, although it's all a bit irrelevant when it never gets dark. My job was flight following the Twin Otter aircraft so I spent most of my time hidden away in the radio room. Flight following involves maintaining radio contact with the aircraft, giving them weather information, keeping a record of flights, passengers and aircraft fuel capacity, and letting people know when the plane is due in so a party can be ready at the skiway to unload. The plane is very versatile, able to carry people or cargo, and Ian the pilot does an amazing job of cramming as much as possible into it. He is ably assisted by Dave the Air Mech who acts as ground crew, fire tender and maintenance department. Vicky the doctor has also been seconded as skiway crew and has been very busy making furniture out of snow. Soon we'll have our own departure lounge.

Our hardworking doctors at the skiway

The plane was used to ferry people, and cargo that can't be left on the snow to freeze (important stuff like beer, wine and spirits), while all other cargo was carried by sledge with snocats from N9 to the Halley cargo line, where it stays until we find a space for it. As Christmas fell during relief we didn't get much of a chance to celebrate, although our chefs did a fine job of providing a Christmas meal, complete with crackers and silly hats. It was strange in many ways, all this snow but not much else in the way of traditional festivities. Perhaps the strangest thing was being able to enjoy a Christmas meal without the constant fear of certain elder sisters stealing the food from my plate.....

Snocat delivery at the Laws platform

New Year is generally a bigger celebration here as relief is over and we get a chance to relax before work starts in earnest. The chefs did us proud once again and laid on an impressive spread of curries, after which we all retired to the bar for drinks. Not sure if I've described it yet but the base has very good leisure facilities. We've got a bar with pool table and darts board, and a lounge with TV and videos and DVDs. There's also a library and a gym, and of course plenty of space outdoors! The New Years Eve celebrations also featured and impromptu gig by the Halley Samba band. Our first public performance, and it went really well, we paraded down the corridor and into the bar where we played for about 5 minutes. Everyone played well and the audience seemed to enjoy it, hopefully we'll have enough people to keep it going over winter as well.

Samba band entertaining

New Years Day was celebrated with a football match. This was highly entertaining to watch, being played on an uneven and fairly soft snow pitch. There was certainly some interesting techniques being employed, more Queensberry Rules than FA Regulations. The match was followed by a celebratory barbecue in the snow. The burgers tasted marvellous, despite being cold by the time they had got from the BBQ to the table, but I suppose that's just one of the many hazards of being here. All in all a good start to the new year, it's certainly going to be interesting.

Spot The Ball

The big day - arrival

2005-12-26T19:05:00.000Z

At last we arrived at the Antarctic coast. Unfortunately, due to a lack of sea ice at the favoured locations we moored up at N9, about 65km from Halley, which meant unloading the ship would take much longer as it's a 6 hour trip in a snocat. Halley sits on the Brunt Ice Shelf, which is not part of the Antarctic mainland, but is still about 100 metres thick, so fairly stable. Where the ice shelf meets the sea it usually ends in a very high cliff, which is no good for getting off a ship. As a result we need to find a creek with some sea ice in order to be able to create a ramp up to the ice shelf. As the sea ice is much thinner we need to be sure it is stable enough to moor the ship to. In order to check this, the ship simply rams itself into the sea ice, breaking off any weak ice and hopefully leaving only the good stuff. This was incredible to watch as we careered toward the coastline, beached ourselves on the ice, then broke through, reversed, and went again. We did this for about an hour, while bewildered penguins and seals scattered about, not quite sure what to do about this big red pointy thing bearing down on them. Once we'd cleared ourselves a space drilling teams went out onto the ice to make holes and put in mooring stakes which the ship tied up to.

Run away!

Drilling mooring holes

In the evening we had Christmas carols with mince pies and mulled wine on the fo'c'sle (pointy end). This proved highly entertaining, it took us a good two minutes to realise we were singing Once in Royal Davids City to the tune of Hark the Herald Angels Sing..... After a few more glasses of mulled wine no-one was really that bothered though, and we got through about a dozen carols and generally felt very festive. *hic*

Christmas Carols on the Shackleton

The following day I was up early as I was due to fly up to base. At last I'd get to see the fabled and much talked about Halley V. Having loaded up a sledge with some cargo we clambered on board to be towed by a snocat along the sea ice and up the ramp to the departure point. We got a last view of the ship moored up by the sea ice as we bid a farewell to the Shackleton. Up on the ice shelf we waited, and finally saw the plane, a speck in the distance as it came in to land. Once the plane had stopped we loaded the fresh food from our sledge onto the plane. Our plane was a De Havilland Twin Otter, which is a fairly small twin prop craft, about the size of a large transit van inside. Once the food was on we squeezed our way up to the seats toward the front. There were five passengers on the flight, with one acting as co-pilot, so we weren't too squashed in the back. We could see straight through to the cockpit which looked like something out of a WWII film. Takeoff is quite an experience as the engines have to be revved hard in order to break free the skis which by now have frozen to the snow, then it was a bumpy and exhilarating ride to get airborne. We did a brief loop to get a last view of the ship and then headed off. We had a fantastic view of the coastline, also passing over the Rumples, a heavily crevassed formation in the ice not far from Halley. After just 15 minutes we were on finals for Halley. First impressions from the air were of a lot very small spaced out dots on the snow. We were met by another snocat, and after unloading the plane were ferried to our new home. Despite having seen all the pictures and read the descriptions nothing had quite prepared me for arrival at Halley. Everything was much larger than I had imagined, all the buildings much further apart. On arrival at the Laws building we were given a very brief tour and basic safety briefing, then instructed to relax for a while. In true BAS style it wasn't long before we were being fed...... I found my room, and met Mike, the current Comms Manager who I'm taking over from. Everyone was very friendly, especially considering we were interrupting their 8 months of relative peace.

Twin Otter aircraft

In all the excitement I wasn't very tired so stayed up late to lend a hand with some cargo, and also managed to get a brief lesson and my first go on a skidoo. I finally crashed out wondering what tomorrow would bring, after what seemed a very long day indeed!

Home for the next 15 months

Final Leg

2005-12-25T22:05:00.000Z

After Bird Island, we were now on the final leg of our journey, a 10 day sail to the edge of the Brunt Ice Shelf. Luckily we had plenty to keep ourselves occupied on the way down. On Al the Chef's birthday the girls made a range of cocktails which everyone enjoyed. We had a quiz night organised by Nathan, kicking off with a viewing of his star appearance on Weakest Link, which he won! I think he was trying to set a standard. Our team came a creditable third, despite only getting about two right on the literature round. We also had an acoustic night in the bar where the more talented members of the party played and sang a very wide range of numbers in the bar , much to everyone's appreciation. However, highlight of the social calendar was undoubtedly Race Night. This was advertised as Ladies Night, top hat and tails required! The whole day was spent by most people in a frenzy of costume making, cardboard, silver foil and gaffer tape everywhere. I cheated somewhat as I had a dinner suit with me (knew it would come in handy), but managed to make a silver cane out of a mop handle, and even topped it with a horse. The evening was great fun, betting was in 'Shackles' which were purchased beforehand. There was also the option to buy horses, which were raced round a course marked on the floor of the bar according to the spin of a wheel. I won on one race, but neither of the horses I owned came anywhere, one of them baulked at the water hazard 6 times!

All dressed up for Race Night

Apart from the socialising there was of course work to be done, we had a series of training sessions covering first aid, vehicles, harness checking and more, designed to complement what we learned in Cambridge before we left, as well as ship emergency drills. I also volunteered to help with a project launching probes off the back of the ship in order to measure sea temperature at different depths. This information was then sent off to the Met Office in England.

In amongst all this hectic activity I even managed to find time to test out the samba drums kindly donated by Bloco-Do-Sul (www.bloco-do-sul.co.uk Dorking's premier samba band rehearsals every Monday first two workshops free is that enough of a plug Mick?). After just a couple of hours a keen group of 12 amateurs had managed to put together a decent sounding batucada. Hopefully this is the first of many, as we hope to have some samba going on at Halley as well. We celebrated our success by playing out on the Poop Deck, luckily the sea was quite calm!

Shackleton sambistas

During this time we also passed 66 degrees south, into the proper Antarctic, and had our first days with no darkness. So far I haven't been affected, it'll take more than a bit of sunlight to stop me sleeping!

Sea ice and sunshine, about 1 am

KEP, Hound Bay and Bird Island

2005-12-19T02:26:00.000Z

After a couple of days sailing we arrived at King Edward Point. I was on cleaning duties in the morning so didn't get to go ashore straight away. KEP is quite a small base like Signy, but just round the corner is the remains of an old whaling station, looking very strange, huge buildings and rusty old boats in the middle of the lovely scenery. Very interesting to walk round though, and imagine what it would have been like at it's peak. There's a small museum there covering a lot of the whaling history, along with a very detailed history of Shackleton's voyages, and some artefacts from his ship. Further round the bay there is a whalers cemetery, where Shackleton is also buried. Again there were more seals and penguins, although these seals were a bit more territorial, and believe me they can move pretty rapidly when they want to!

Grytviken whaling station and cemetery

Some fool suggested a game of football in the afternoon, quite interesting on a pitch that was either rocky or a marsh depending where you stood. There was a large tourist ship in as well so there were lots of rich Americans in matching red jackets, not sure what they made of the game.... In the evening the base hosted a barbecue, with the boat shed being converted in to a bar/disco/buffet/refuge from the cold.

The following day we were just round the corner at Hound Bay, where we were dropping off a science team. Considering it was only about 5 people for 3 months there was an incredible amount of cargo to move ashore so everyone was involved. This involved getting the cargo and several people into a landing craft, which then went ashore to be offloaded. While the cargo was manhauled from the landing point to the camp, I was detailed to dig a square hole, as deep as I could go. I can now proudly add Antarctic Toilet Engineer to my CV.

Reindeer at Hound Bay

Next we were a little further round to visit Bird Island, just off the tip of South Georgia. Again we were mostly shifting cargo ashore. This relatively simple task was made much more difficult by the local seal population. They completely covered the small beach and most of the jetty. On arrival we were each issued with a 'bodger'. This very technical name actually refers to a broom handle, which is used to fend off aggressive seals. As it was breeding season there were a lot of boisterous males about. We had an interesting time, two people trying to pull a cart load of cargo across a shingle beach, surrounded by a phalanx of bodger wielding bodyguards. Things weren't made any easier when the handle on the cart broke, but luckily the base handyman effected a quick repair and we were soon underway again. We were also lucky enough to see a seal being born, I half expected to look round and see David Attenborough with a film crew.

Swimming seals

Back at the ship, my new cabin mate had unwittingly nicked my bed. Not wishing to wake him up at 2am I decided to take the recently vacated top bunk, and in my efforts to leap athletically up for a well earned nights rest I promptly broke the table. Oh well, something to do tomorrow.

Signy Island

2005-12-16T09:10:00.000Z

On our way down to Halley we stop off at a few other bases to deliver supplies, collect rubbish, or pick up and drop off people. The first of these was Signy Island, in the South Orkneys. We arrived in the evening, but anchored up a little way out as we were not due ashore until the next day. Having been breaking through sea ice most of the day there was much speculation as to whether we'd get onto the base, but the bay seemed very clear. Up early to go ashore, we were taken a few at a time in one of the ship's outboard ribs. It was quite strange to see the ship disappearing, but the scenery was quite spectacular. There were some large bergs in the bay, and as we skirted these we could see the base coming into view. It's strange to suddenly see a collection of large green sheds in the middle of a remote and very wintry scene.

Welcome to Signy

Having been welcomed ashore by Steve the Base Commander, we were free to have a look around. One of the guys invited me to come and see the 'pets'. We strolled round the front of the main building to be confronted by a dozen elephant seals lounging about making loud belching noises. Never again will I complain about smelly dogs, these things are incredibly pungent, I wouldn't fancy having one in the house. They seemed fairly unconcerned by us though. I suppose any argument between a human and a 1 ton seal is a foregone conclusion, and after all they were there first. Exploring the base didn't take long so I lent a hand digging out some old pipe that was encased in snow and ice. Apparently shovelling snow is something you soon get used to when working for BAS.....

Signy Base

After lunch there was a walk organised, so a bunch of us hiked up the hill behind the bay to explore. The view from the top was breathtaking, with the base way down below, the ship out at anchor, and some stunning scenery over the other side of the water. We explored quite a way, seeing plenty more elephant seals, and the odd fur seal and a few penguins. It's all starting to look very antarctic now, and everywhere we looked the view was better than before.

Out for a stroll

Ship at anchor

Next day we were due to go ashore again but the sea ice had come into the bay very quickly so it was decided we'd better be on our way. Next stop King Edward Point on South Georgia.

Making waves

2005-12-15T12:49:00.000Z

On the morning of our departure I was volunteered to help out. The ship needed to be turned around so the crew could test one of the landing craft, so four of us went ashore to cast off lines while the ship turned. I don't think I impressed any of the crew with my rope skills..... It was very impressive to watch the ship turn though, it's incredibly maneouvrable for such a large vessel, just pulled out sideways from the quay, turned 180 degrees and came back in. We departed in the afternoon, and after a quick safety brief were pretty much left to our own devices.

Life on board is very good, we have an excellent galley serving full cooked breakfasts and a huge array of dishes for lunch and dinner, a lounge/bar to relax in with a well stocked beer fridge. You take what you want, tick it off on your sheet and it comes off your account. This provides an excellent way of not knowing how much you're spending on beer..... There are two quieter rooms where people tend to read or play cards or chess, also a couple of TV's with a large selection of videos and DVDs to choose from. There's even a gym in the hold, and I've been to it twice, although the rowing machine is a little too authentic in rough seas.

So far I've had no problems with seasickness, although we've only had a couple of rough days so I think we've been pretty lucky. The ship has a kind of figure of eight motion in the water which is quite hard to predict, so moving about can be tricky. There are stories of people being thrown out of their bunks in the middle of the night but so far I've been OK. The ship moves around much less when there's sea ice around. Although not an ice breaker, the ship is ice strengthened, and moves very easily through what looks like very thick ice. Everyone got very excited when we saw our first icebergs in the distance, then a few hours later we were surrounded buy them!

First bergs

Breaking through the sea ice

Stanley and the Falklands

2005-12-13T16:07:00.000Z

After the drive from the airport to Stanley, about an hour on interesting roads, complemented by an even more interesting driving style, we arrived to be billeted. I ended up in a bungalow with four other guys. We immediately set about exploring the local ~~pubs~~ places of interest. Stanley is a small place so we soon knew our way around. There's not a huge amount to do, and we ended up spending about a week there, but luckily had a few diversions. I spent a day at Stanley airport in the radio tower, trying to reminnd myself what I was supposed to have learned on the radio courses. There were two or three light aircraft back and forth all day, acting as a kind of taxi service between remote farms and other islands. We got to see the BAS Dash 7 aircraft come in, bringing people out from Rothera.

We managed to see a couple of bands during the week. Stanley's best known band are called the Fighting Pigs, and have their own purpose built venue out of town, an excellent night in a packed venue. The guitarist also has another band, a much more low key affair, who played in one of the pubs. Met many strange characters in Stanley, including a bunch of Kiwis who had just canoed round South Georgia. The things some people do for entertainment.......

One morning a couple of guys suggested a walk up Mount Tumbledown. "Nothing too strenuous." Their idea of strenuous and mine are vastly different. It was well worth it though as we had a great view of Stanley and the harbour. The following day we had an invite to look round the RFA ship Grey Rover. Essentially it's a giant floating tanker, currently employed supporting HMS Southampton. The visit consisted of three hours in the ship's bar with a 20 minute tour of the vessel. Terribly hospitable these naval types.

View back to Stanley from Tumbledown.

We joined our ship, RRS Ernest Shackleton, a couple of days before we were due to sail. The ship was moored up at Mare Harbour, so it was an hour coach ride either way in to Stanley. We had a couple of nights at Mount Pleasant base, availing ourselves of their facilities, principally the bowling alley and the pool tables. Also had a walk out to a nearby bay and saw my first wild penguin! (Wild it was absolutely livid etc etc) Looked a bit lost all on his own but someone said they saw a colony a bit further up.

Next it was time to depart and on to stage 2 of the trip, conquering the high seas......