76 degrees South

R.R.S Ernest Shackleton and Signy Research Station

2007-01-14T15:30:00.000-03:00

A grand title for two fascinating places. I spent two months on the Ship on my way South to Halley originally in 2004. I learnt then that I loved being at sea and I'd gladly call the Shack my home (be it a temporary home). I found myself on it 2 years later and nothing much had changed. The crew has more familiar than unfamiliar faces, the layout and setup the same. The daily routine is much the same, but as outgoing FIDS the expectancy of us to do as much around the ship is lower - which is just as well since we're not half as keen as we were when we were brought in. The ship's crew of 23 people generally work 4 months on, 4 months off working 7 days a week while they're on the ship. They're a jolly bunch who enjoy taking the mickey out of us, but work hard and deserve to be left alone most of the time. So we do, and that means it's a quiet ship.

So that's it, Anto, Me, Vicki and Charlotte are the only passengers on the ship until we get to Signy. I was expecting the journey to take a lot longer, but with the delays in the ice when the ship came in to Halley, the Captain ordered that both engines be put on as we make a quick dash to the Falkland Islands with a brief stop in Signy to pick up two more passengers.

First we had to break through the ice again. Not too much trouble for this ice-strengthened ship; we had 2 days of sailing through glassy waters with a bit of ice in the way. We only had a couple of hard nights sleeping through the noise of ice on hull, the noise from the smallest bergy bit seemed to reverberate around my cabin. I was, as usual, bouncing about the ship not knowing which way to point my (many) cameras, and am pretty chuffed to have seen so many penguins and seals as they slowly realized that the Ship was bigger than them and so they'd better move out the way - fast. It's the number of birds that surprised me. We don't get that many birds at Halley - it's too far away from the sea. But on the ship there's millions and I'm afraid I don't know many of their names... (alright Jeff, how's it going Bert?)

The ship ramming the ice, creating a small crack, waiting for it to get bigger and then sailing through the gap.

A couple of Crabeater Seals discussing which way they should head.

A couple of Adelie Penguins porpoising.

We arrived at Signy after a couple of days of 'finding my sea legs'. Signy Research Station is a small summer-only base. There's a Base Commander, a Generator Mechanic and the rest are Biological Scientists (please write in with corrections). They live in a very small building, but with what seems a lot of storage space spread around the base. The base is surrounded by huge icebergs, towering mountains and glaciers. It's what Antarctica is supposed to look like. Magnificent.

Signy Research Station, on Signy Island which is one of the smaller islands in the South Orkneys.

Me braving standing near sleepy Elephant Seals round the back of the accommodation building.

Rocks, mountains, icebergs and the Shackleton.

At Signy we picked up two summer scientists who were there for 6 weeks. We picked up a bit of cargo as well but it didn't take long and us tourists had to get back on the ship again.

We're now just over 12 hours sail from Stanley, Falkland Islands.
Civilisation here I come!

Relief #5

2007-01-05T14:22:00.000-03:00

Well, the ship did eventually get here. We heard on New Years Eve that it was at N9, had tentatively checked out the creeks and was preparing to moor up. After the most christmassy Christmas I'd had here we had a pretty uninteresting New Year's Eve. We were all expected to be up and about the following day (7am), so we brought in the new year with a bit of Argentine radio, champagne and then quickly and quietly went to bed.

The ship loading cargo onto a Snocat drawn sledge at the N9 relief site.

The next day I was up to do the weather balloon and then left for N9 on the plane. I seem to keep on getting a good deal on this, only having travelled the 65km or so 3 times by snocat. I think I've flown it more often - at least 5 I can think of.
We met the new people. A ship crammed with very enthusiastic, bright eyed people that haven't been chewed up through the system yet and who were desperate to get off the ship and get to their new home.
After a 4 hour kip I managed to hitch a lift on the snocat convoy heading back to base. I got back just after 9am and went straight to doing my job for relief- Met. Now, my job isn't boring - we collect world class scientific observations. But, doing it in 12 hour shifts by yourself for a week - well that's boring especially when most other people get to do something different, something a little more exciting than their normal everyday job. Still - I had a brand new removable hard drive and lots of paperwork to keep me entertained.

Elsewhere on base lots of things have been going on - most of them I only pick up on the busy and frantic radio calls. Two new types of vehicles have come in for the big reliefs over the next couple of summers for the Halley 6 build. Two Challengers (formally Cat) and two John Deere tractors have bigger pulling power than our Snocats, but also seem to travel the same distances in half the time. Very impressive by all accounts (though they do guzzle up the fuel).

A John Deere tractor taking the old AIS container away.

Still most of relief is box moving. Moving the boxes from the ship's hold to a sledge, from a sledge to the plane, then the plane to another sledge, then the sledge to the Laws - on no, we need those boxes somewhere else...

Unpacking - not a very glamorous job, but a necessary one none the less.

The Shackleton at N9.
You can see the vehicle tracks that lead into the distance towards Halley.

On the final morning of relief I said my goodbyes and left Halley. I caught the plane to N9 (via the rumples) and then got on board the Shackleton with Vicki and Anto, meeting Charlotte (the old KEP doctor) on board.

Goodbye Halley.

Awaiting the Ship's Arrival

2006-12-19T16:30:00.000-03:00

The RRS Shackleton is on it's way to relieve the base. The ship will take away our rubbish and empty fuel drums and give us (in order of importance) post, food, fuel and spares. Oh and new people. Lots of them. At the moment there's 19 people on base (3 managers flew in with the Germans last Saturday), and the ship is teeming with people - lots of people.

So, where is it and when's it going to get in?
Well - it's due in on the 21st of December, but there's a lot of sea ice about at the moment.

Click on the picture to see a larger image.
This is an image picked up by our satellite imager the Dartcom HRPT. It was taken around 5pm (local time) on the 17th of December. The image is made up of 3 channels recording at 3 different wavelength bands and are represented by blue, red and green. In this image white and light blue is cloud, the yellow & peach is ice and snow, and the black is open water. You can't distinguish fast ice and shelf ice on the Satellite image but we actually have around 5km of fast ice (thin 1st year sea ice) around our iceshelf. That's what the Penguins are living on. Beyond this is open water, which is promising for the ship. The problem is the build up of seaice against the Stancomb-Wills ice shelf (blue arrow) which is where the ship normally finds open water. There's a bit of cloud over this bit of the picture, but we think it's pretty dense icepack. Beyond the open water is a lot of pack ice. It's difficult to tell how thick or solid it is or to guess how well the ship will get through it.

This all of course depends on weather. If we get a strong Easterly wind it will blow all of the sea ice out of the way, but then there's a risk that it destroys the fast ice that the Penguins are living on and the chicks all die - again.

You can track the ship by clicking here, and the latest webcam out the rear of the ship here.

This is one of the pros/cons of living in such a remote place. All we can do is place bets and wait for post.

Penguins - Growing up

2006-12-13T21:14:00.000-03:00

Well I think I had my last visit to the Penguin colony the other night (Monday). I'd just spent a happy afternoon fuel raising when I heard that there was a penguin trip going that evening, and I was on it. Very exciting! I'd almost resigned myself to not seeing them again. The last time I saw them up close was on my winter trip- so it had been quite a while (not for the lack of trying of course).

A panorama of windy bay. All the little dots on the ice are penguins. The flags show us the best abseil point. The colony has mainly been living in a group by the small peninsula on the left, but has spread out significantly since we first visited them in August.

We did the usual trip, in a Snocat. Five of us; Simon, Anto, Nic, Vicki and me. Nic drove. It hadn't taken us long to get our gear together and we were off just after dinner. An hour later we're at the caboose. Now this is where I got confused, cause the last time the drumline was raised the caboose was raised too. I knew this, but people normally just move it forward. It was at a different orientation and away from the windtail that had been building up for years giving a false horizon so I thought that the bay had totally changed. It hadn't, and the seaice was perfectly safe to walk around on. Phew!

We all got roped up and walked down to the abseil point. Well I call it that, but it's more like a walkable slope now. No rope needed! From the top was an amazing view of the seaice and the colony (a quick ob for NOAA). The colony was very spread out. There were many more chicks than adults, all with a good space between them. No more need for the huddled bunch we saw in August before the sun had risen.

Nic, Vicki and Simon leading the way on the sea ice.

We went down to the seaice and as we started to walk between the small groups a new difference was apparent. All of the penguins were very wary of us. They ran away flapping their wings telling their neighbours to be careful too. There were a few birds flying about as well. Skuas, Snow Petrels, Wilson-Storm Petrels. One skua was quite interested by us and started circling and diving. No wonder the penguins were nervous.

Monster chicks. Still as fluffy as ever.

Two penguins just chilling. Most of the chicks are almost the same size as their parents.
The chicks are just starting to moult. They won't survive in the ocean until they fully moult.

The chicks were huge. They still looked exactly the same as a couple of months ago, but much much bigger. It was like the land of giant penguins... which seems silly since Emperors are the largest type of penguin, but some of the chicks looked bigger than the adults while still looking like the tiny chicks. I guess they'll need a head-start on the feeding if they're not skilled at fishing.

After a fabulous wander on the seaice and a short sit amoungst the chicks (where I reeled off a 36 roll of black and white and another of coloured slide) it was time to head home. After a quick walk back to the shelf ice, and then the trudge back towards the Snocat I drove us all home.

A very tiring day- Lovely.

A wonderful night with the sun high in the sky.

First Visitors

2006-10-31T19:41:00.000-03:00

On the 28th of February earlier this year the ship left us for the winter. The RRS Ernest Shackleton left the N9 relief site in poor visibility- too bad for them to stick around and travel nearer the base so we could give our traditional goodbyes. It has been 245 days since the sixteen of us last saw someone else, someone new or just someone different.

This morning at 04:40 the Basler DC 3 landed at Halley International Airport, or more commonly called, the skiway. There were six persons on board, three Canadian Crew and three Russian passengers. They had flown from the Chiliean Marsh base up the peninsula and were on their way to Novo a Russian base further East of here. Since we're the only base for miles around the plane stops here to refuel on it's way in and out every year.

Halley International Airport. The Basler DC3.

Refuelling the plane. Photo by Anto.

I was on nights while this was going on, which was very convenient since no-one on the Met team had to stay up late or get up early to give the plane weather observations. It did mean that I had a very busy night, doing Air obs from 11pm, making bread, doing a bit of tidying up - there was no time for the usual film and a bit of tv that nights normally consists of!

Since it was quite early I was only asked to wake a few necessary people- infact we got the call that they 'could' be coming so late that I don't think everyone knew that the plane was due. Also they had a 50knot tail wind and so arrived 2 hours before the original ETA.

John wanted to be woken, as he's the BC. Anto and Bob needed to move fuel to the skiway and then assist with refuelling the plane. Vicki needed to be there since she's the most medically qualified (being a doctor and all) and she had become quite familiar with the whole skiway scene after spending a summer working there. John, Brian and Chris were still officially on holiday (but had come back early after being a little sick of each other's snoring in the caboose), so Brian stayed up for the entertainment. Anto stayed up as well and I don't think Alex had ever got to sleep. Liz was woken by the plane and apparently wondered into the dinning room looking quite confused.

Me driving the passengers back to base. Photo by Anto.

The skiway scene was fun, I made a sign for the Airport and there were a couple of flags for tie down points if the plane had to stay. There was a Snocat with a sledge of fuel behind in and a dozer incase the Snocat didn't have enough oomph to move it. There was a skidoo with the fire sledge, a skidoo with a box sledge and I'd brought a skidoo with a happy sledge for people moving. Vicki, Bob, Brian, Anto and I stood watching the plane land and taxi over to us- they decided they didn't want to walk very far and taxied into our laps! Alex had skied to the skiway and arrived shortly after the plane. We then stood in a huddle while the Air Mechanic and Pilots hurried around their plane securing it. Eventually we greeted them, and then demanded the freshies. After loading them into the warm Snocat we finished our hello's and discovered that they were quite hungry and wanted to get to base before refuelling.

The 3 Russian passengers outside the Simpson. Alex and I gave them a quick tour of the base.

John had very kindly stayed to look after the Laws while I went to the skiiway. In return for this I took some very dodgy footage of the plane landing and he made breakfast - a good swap for me. I'd already made the rolls and I'd made some croissant impersonators the previous night. Nic had got up and was wondering about her kitchen in her pyjamas. I didn't see Nic though, she'd scurried off back to bed just before the strange new people arrived down the corridor.

We all sat round the table and had a wonderful breakfast and chatted. Then the Canadian crew started to make calls asking about the weather while Alex and I took the Russian passengers on a brief tour of the Science Platforms.

The best thing about the day (besides talking to unfamiliar faces) was what they brought as presents... fresh fruit and vegetables. Eggs. I generally don't like vegetables and so all this was a very welcome sight, lettuce and tomatoes!!! I'd eaten lettuce once in around two years - during 2nd relief last year we were given some by the ship. Sure I visited the ship, but 1. The choice is amazing, there's so many new things to eat 2. A lot of other people want to eat the same things and 3. I was generally overwhelmed by the new faces, sites and tastes I really don't remember what I ate. I do remember getting off the plane at the ship and whilst helping put cargo on the plane before I went down to the ship I helped myself to my first tomato in a year and was politely left to eat it while everyone else loaded the plane without me. Yum!

Vicki, Dave, Alex, John and Liz celebrating the return of all things green.

This is the scene that had greeted the air mech that had come back for something. John was unpacking a box one thing at a time, we were cheering every item on - it could have looked a little strange.

Sledge Gnome

2006-10-11T06:47:00.000-03:00

Here at Halley Base, wintering staff get two holidays a year. My first one this year was known as Sledge Buttercup and included 7 days off, 5 of them camping at the Hinge Zone. I've just finished the second one which as well as other names was known as Sledge Gnome. All of the sledge parties are named using the phonetic alphabet starting with Sledge Alpha at the beginning of the year. Ours was officially called Sledge Golf, but every time we had a radio sched we tried to think of a different name. Gladioli was a popular one, as was 'Go Team' (after the band with the catchy tunes), but I find Gnome the most amusing since it doesn't start with a phonetic G.

Me on my skidoo. This is the first year that Halley have used Alpine 3's as the winter trip skidoos. I had a lot of luggage on the back and I was wearing lots of clothes since it was quite windy. Helmets are a must and everyone wears a harness and is attached to the doo by a long rope. Photo by Anto.

Day 1: Gale force winds, blowing and snowing. No chance of moving off base.

Day 2: The storm had cleared and we were left with a gorgeous day. Nicola, Simon and I got the skidoos ready and packed the two sledges that had been unpacked at the end of last trip. We were all ready to go by around 11am. Anto however, was not. He is the vehicle mechanic and wanted to use the opportunity of having a week off base to leave a vehicle that he was de-winterising inside the warm garage to defrost before he could start work on it. He also had a few other thousands things to sort out and after lunch Nic, Simon and I drove off to Windy caboose without him. When we got there the wind had dropped completely, so we took the opportunity to quickly visit the Penguins. It took a bit of time to put the doos away and take a couple of boxes off two of the sledges, get our equipment on and rope up. We then had a bit of a walk to the abseil point and then along the seaice to the Penguins. I've done this a few times this winter, so is all becoming quite familiar. I even managed to bob-camcord the abseil. Not a bad bit of footage.

The colony by the cliffs on the 1st of October.

I will never get tired of visiting the penguins. The first time I visited was in my first summer on New Years day. I wasn't too interested then, I went 'cause I thought I should and was more impressed with the day out than looking at the birds activities. Almost nine months later I went with the first trip to visit the colony in the winter. I was much more interested by this point, to see them manage to survive all that time in the cold while we've got heat, food, internet, dvd's and folk were still going off the edge and they've got.... well - each other. I think that was the moment they gained my utmost respect. I visited them again mid October and that was it, the sea ice went out early and all the little chicks died... Since then I've visited them loads this winter. I've been very fortunate.
So, we got back from our super speedy trip and put up the poo tent (an old pup tent with a hole in it) and got the caboose warm. Anto turned up with two people on Alpine 2's to accompany him. Jules and Dave went home after a fast turn-around and the four of us settled into caboose life.
A caboose is a small hut set on a sledge. They generally stay put, but often get moved about for relief. There's a reflex stove for enormous amounts of heat (my thermometer was reading +30degC when I woke up!), and each caboose has two Primus stoves for cooking on and two Tilly lamps for heat and light. There are also 4 bunks, a first aid box, stove spares box and a lot of spare food. No one could go hungry in one of the Halley cabooses.

Day 3: Another lovely day, another penguin visit. Anto and Nic roped up one pair, Simon and me as another. We all went to the regular abseil point and Anto and Nic went down. We were to meet them at the colony. Simon and I went walking around for a different abseil point. One we could ice climb up. We'd seen the desired section the day before but it took us a while to find it again.
My intention was to abseil to the bottom and then ice climb back up again, and then abseil down the 2nd time. I'm going to remember this abseil vividly for a while since it was fantastic. I enjoy abseiling, it's absolutely no effort and once I get over the edge and am totally on the rope I'm quite happy. This one was a little different in that I was b-laying Simon all the time he was setting up the point, so I couldn't see down until I had put the abseil device on and was over the edge. The initial view was fantastic. The whole penguin colony was spread below me and on either side were perfectly straight ice cliffs. It was also much taller than the regular point we'd got used to.. brilliant.
Not so brilliant was my attempt at ice climbing. I'd scaled a cliff once before (last year), but this cliff (one that Simon assured me was the only suitable one) was difficult. There wasn't much on it except for... blue ice. I know it's called 'ice climbing' and I shouldn't be surprised, but I had difficulty. Anto had a go too and got half way or so, but it was still a lot of fun to try.

Simon abseiling down the cliff at Windy bay.

After that all four of us were on the ice. We took photos and video of the Penguins. They're starting to creche and there were a lot of parents pushing their chicks round for a walk. They cresh so that both parents can go and fish at the same time, and this way each chick gets twice as much food. It suggested to us that a gap in the seaice couldn't be too far away so we went for a walk following the constant streams of penguins going to and coming back from fishing.

Two chicks following each other. When they initially get left by both parents the chicks don't seem to stop moving. They have a fantastic habit of coming up to people, asking for food. I had my film SLR out when this happened to me, I took three photos and the film ran out! I've since developed the film and all I got were half frames with in focus seaice.

We had underestimated these animals. The sea ice isn't flat. It must have been pushed together forming ridges while the bulk of it was freezing. These animals push themselves along on their bellies in small groups and then stand up every now and again to work out where they are. We know they can't see very well outside the water, I wonder how they do this journey after some snowfall or a blow when all tracks of previous journeys would be wiped out.

It was getting late by this point and we had walked a long way today. We headed back to the colony, stopped for a few more photos (had my camcorder out again!) and then went up the abseil. I was wrecked by this point, so Anto accompanied Simon to go and get the rope we'd dropped down for the ice climb, while Nic and I headed back to the caboose.
I can normally light Tilly lamps and Primus and reflex stoves without a hitch, but nothing was going right for us when we got back. We were cold, tired, dehydrated and silly - and that was after one day of holiday pace at -30oC. To walk to the pole and back? My admiration for everyone who's done something like that has increased.

Day 4: The plan initially was to move to the Rumples today. It wasn't more than an hour and a half on a doo, would take us 2 hours to break camp at the caboose and around 4 to set up at the Rumples... but we changed our minds and again we had another Penguin trip. This time not so long, an afternoon trip.

Nic and our regular abseil point in the reflection of my goggles. Photo by Nicola.

Emperor chicks. They'd just got to the stage when they were starting to creche. This is so the parents can both go and fish so that the chicks get twice the amount of food. And yes, they are that adorable. For more penguin photos follow the flickr link to the right of this page.

Day 5: Pack up from Windy and move to the McDonald Ice Rumples. This is where a bit of rock grounds our part of ice shelf. The ice shelf still moves over it, and so concentric ripples in the ice are formed. While anybody camps here you can hear the ice moving beneath you. Gunshot type cracks can wake you up in the middle of the night. That's all fine when you're in a tent on ground that you've checked for crevasses. It's when you're walking over a very clear 'there's no way anyone couldn't know there was a big hole underneath you' bridge and it cracks. That's scary.

Nic and me in our tent at the Rumples. I'd just fried up some bacon on the Primus stove, the Tilly lamp is going strong providing heat and light. Photo by Anto.

I like tent living, you wake up sometime in the morning. Dying for a pee. I somehow find my way out of the many layers and toggles of my sleeping bag, trying not to let too many ice crystals fall onto me in the process, fish out my gloves from inside my sleeping bag and then proceed to start the Primus stove. That's not a quite thing to do, so most of the time when one person wakes up in a tent, the other does too. Nic and I had a similar arrangement to all my other tent partners. I do the Primus, and Nic does the Tilly. I brought a small freezer thermometer with me on this trip and most mornings it read just above -30oC. Within 10 minutes that would easily read -10oC. Now to get it another 10 degrees and above zero would be a bit more effort. We use the Primus to boil some water for tea and hot alpen for me, coffee for Nic. Then I start emptying out the water from thermoses and reboiling it, making sure we've always got a good supply of hot water. We keep small blocks of snow between the inner and outer lining of the tent and pretty soon the tent is more like a (cold) sauna, I can see Nic's glasses steaming up and the carbon monoxide detector is sitting nicely on it's 'alarm one' beep. This is my cue to stop playing with water and turn off the stove. We're now a lot warmer, I'm fed and had some tea and am ready to get out my bag and start putting on the layers. Now that I'm safely in the middle of a long paragraph I can talk about a morning pee. Now this will entirely depend on your tent partner, but remember that we haven't looked outside the tent yet, so don't know what the weather's like. Nic and I were perfectly comfortable with using our handy pee funnels and pee bottles to have a pee in our sleeping bag. It isn't as difficult as it sounds, and when you're in a position where the tent's still cold and it would be even colder outside I highly recommend it. The only thing I'd advise is to beware of how much you need to go. I very nearly filled up my 1 litre bottle one morning!

Day 6: Was good contrast but was drifting snow. The wind was cutting and we all decided and then collaborated to have a day in the tents. Much bridge playing ensued.

Day 7: Weather was rubbish today. Still windy, but with very bad contrast, tent bound again (no-body complaining though).

Day 8: Gorgeous weather. Clear skies, a little windy. We packed up camp. It didn't take us too long (2 or 3 hours), and then got our kit on for a quick walk before heading off to Creek 2.

My hands and feet got cold while packing up our tent. I was tired, but up for a short walk. We roped up in a four which makes travelling faster and safer. If one of us were to go down a crevasse it would be easy work for three people to pull one out. When walking in a two I have very little confidence in my ability to arrest somebody else's fall - especially since everyone else was heavier than me. We walked through the Rumples 'Valley of Death' up the 'Temple Staircase' to arrive at High Point. The first two names are ones I made up during the journey. It took about an hour since Simon knew a route was possible since he did the same walk with the previous trip. High Point is a well known position, but is constantly changing. It is where the ice is churned into a big mass of slots and ridges and is... the wherever the highest point is. It was a lovely walk, we saw topography, I put my right foot in two crevasses which then wouldn't give it back.

Nic, me and Anto all roped up in the Rumples by Central Berg. Photo by Simon.

Once we got to High Point we could really feel the wind. Maybe it was the topography, but the wind felt like it had picked up a bit. We stopped for a bite to eat and took a few photos. We could see our waiting skidoos and sledges at our camp and beyond that Halley Base. The previous trip had got to this point and decided to radio us and wave. Poor Bob assumed that something was wrong couldn't work out what they were saying, I looked out, but couldn't see any blobs. They then stayed there to witness the partial eclipse. We then went onwards exploring. This was quite fun, we were following Simon who was just wondering to where he felt like going. We ended up near a large weathered berg that was sticking up somewhat. We took a few more photos and then wandered on some more. We got to a place where we could see the seaice. There were little puffs of cumulus and seasmoke in the distance showing that there was open water. Beyond that a huge iceberg. By this time the snow was drifting around us and we were all quite done. We headed back to camp. This was a very scenic walk, but tiring. Simon ended up dragging us all along while I was doing my best to balance being able to see possible crevasses and not get too sunburnt. The sun won and I've now got a very freckly face again.

When we finally got back to camp again we started the doos, roped all the sledges and doos together and drove off away from the Rumples. I'd been to the Rumples the year before, we did very different things then and had a very different experience. Both were great and I'm already disappointed that I won't get to do this again.
So, we were driving over crevasses to get to Creek 2 along the A line. The A line is a line of flags and Automated Weather Stations (AWS) and other technical instruments that are part of the Lifetime of Halley project. This line (and others) have a GPS survey done on them regularly. Scientists at Cambridge then use the data to study ice and glacial movements and (importantly for us) try and predict when the bit of the ice shelf that we live on is going to calve off. At the moment they are saying things like 'have you all got lifejackets?' and 'maybe you should practice evacuating'. Anyway still driving. I'm cold. Very cold, my hands are like ice and I only don't stop because I know that the wind is increasing and if it gets too windy we can't move anywhere (poor visibility) and then have to set up camp- again. So I move my doo on with my numb fingers and eventually the warmers on the handles kick in and help my situation. I also did a lot of strange acrobatics to keep my blood pumping to my legs and which might have looked quite peculiar. While driving along the A line we were heading into the wind so I could almost convince myself I was cosy in my millions of layers. Heading North along the Creek 2 drumline we were all hit with the wind across the skidoos where there's no windshield. I was cold again. We got to Creek 2 caboose quickly and started to get ourselves and our belongings off our sledges and doos, the skidoos needed to be tarped up and the caboose made warm. Nic and I were both quite cold but still managed ok. The evening was celebrated by recounting the day's memories over some lovely hot manfood. What a day!

Day 9: Still blowing, good contrast caboose bound. Auch well.

Anto holding up the meal that Nic and I had prepared. Simon helping me serve it up in the background. The meal was spaghetti and pesto with a chicken and vegetable stir fry. It was quite simple. We soaked dried chicken, onions, sweetcorn, olives, mushrooms and peppers in water. Added some herbs and fried it up. The best man-food meal I've had. Photo by Anto.

Day 10: Wind has dropped, another wonderful day we pack up the caboose then head for base. We got back in time for lunch, reuniting with hot showers, clean clothes and familiar faces. All in all a brilliant trip. We had 1 full day out, 3 half days and a lot of time travelling between places. I wouldn't have changed the order of what we did since we got three penguin trips in, a good walk in the Rumples and a good mix of tent and caboose life. Lovely.

Nic driving off on an Alpine 3 and towing a Nansen sledge from Creek 2. The end of our trip.

Tour of The Simpson

2006-09-11T06:49:00.000-03:00

The Ice and Climate Building is otherwise known as The Simpson Platform. It was named after Sir George Clarke Simpson who was a meteorologist with Scott (1910-1913) and later the Director of the Met Office (1920-1938).

The Simpson Platform looking North with the two Met Masts on the left.
This platform has four jackable legs, one set of stairs and a ladder at the back.

On the roof are various domes and antennas which we use to collect a variety of data.

It is where Kirsty, Andy and I work. We are the Met Team.

A Tour of The Simpson

As you come up the wobbly metal staircase you reach the small open platform. This has a wooden floor which we sweep regularly so the snow doesn't build up too much. On the platform we store a large collection of metal poles (you never know when they might be useful), a spare dome for tracking the balloon, unused air sampling flasks (MAKS), a few empty boxes (got to be careful they don't blow away), spare balloon dipping mix in a jerry can and a few other odds and ends. Also on the platform is the crane (which we tend to only use during relief), and an fuel tank which will be used to heat the Simpson during it's decommissioning.

The Simpson gets it's power and heat via a tunnel in the ice (30m) which links to the Laws Platform (main platform). Each of the platforms have a wooden horsebox which can be used to acess the tunnels. We also have ladder access to the roof from the platform.

Going through the door you'll see a corridor with the fire exit at the other end (11.5metres away). In the corridor are some quick Met equipment, Safety equipment and our jackets, boots etc.

Entering the Simpson.

If you were to turn right straight away you'd get to the Ozone Lab- so called cause this is where we keep the Dobson Ozone Spectrophotometer (or the Dobson for short). This is the instrument that discovered the hole in the ozone layer. Because the instruments (this one and the one at Faraday) are on the ground (ie. not on a satellite), the metbabes of old were able to do extra checks on the instruments to check that the readings they were getting weren't erroneous. It turns out that the instruments were fine and there was indeed an ozone hole appearing over Antarctica during every spring which then closes up before the summer. This is still happening and you can see this season's ozone measurements using this link.

The Ozone Lab with the Dobson Ozone Spectrophotometer (did I mention the Ozone hole?)

We also have a few other projects based in this small room. The first is turbidity. We get a few measurements done a year on very clear days during the summer. It measures stuff in the atmosphere that isn't water based, like volcanic dust.

The second is snow sampling. We dig a bucket of snow every week and wait for it to melt. Then we decant it into various bottles and send them to places around the world (NOAA) for them to have a good 'clean base level' of precipitation.

Then there's MAKS which is air sampling. We don't do it inside but keep the flasks in this room and recharge the battery. This is the same deal as the snow, the air is assumed to be the cleanest in the world- so when they start to measure (and they do) increased levels of Methane and Carbon dioxide then...., well try and use the car less.

A little further down the corridor is the Met Office. This is where the three of us (and a few more in the summer time) sit and do work on the computer (like updating blogs). We also famously have a hammock (not in photo) which is primarily used by visitors while they sip on their lovely cups of tea.

The Met Office: We have 5 PC workspaces and a wee tea area.

The last room on the right of the corridor is the Met Lab. This is a large room with lots of PC's and equipment. We measure the stations lateral movement using a GPS logger, measure the amount of cloud, the present weather, a host of other meteorological data that we send back to the Met Office. We also set up and record the data from the daily weather balloon, and look at the day's satellite images tracked and received by our Dartcom satellite (this has been brought in for the winter since it's important that it's intact for the pilot's return and our strong winds keep on blowing it off the roof).

The Met Lab 1: Most of our 'Met' loggers live here; Cloudbase recorder, Present Weather Detector, GPS position and the Milos Met Weather Station (we enter our observer met in here too).

Met Lab 2: The weather balloon is in the far left corner and the HRPT satellite dome is to the very left. This room is also used by any wondering summer scientist who need a place to call home.

The FOCAS Lab (or Space lab) is right across the corridor and is a small room used to house the boundary layer loggers. We also use it to set up the sondes (a sonde is a met instrument that can be attached to a weather balloon, blimp or kite) and we receive the data from any blimp flights we do. There's also a large fridge freezer in this room which we store the snow samples and air filters that we change in the CASLab.

Focas Lab 1: There are a number of instruments around the base (and beyond) that we keep an eye on from these loggers.

Focas Lab 2: This equipment is part of the Focas and Cefac projects. We send these sondes up on our blimp around 400 metres. In the past these sondes have also been flown on stable kites. The spare sodar electronics box and speaker are under the desk.

At the end of the Focas Lab is the Wet Chemistry Lab. This is a special lab which has a large oven, a laminar flow hood and an emergency shower. This is a lab where chemicals can be mixed, stored and disposed of cleanly. Every three years or so BAS try to send down an overwintering atmospheric chemist to do intensive short term studies of the air and snow.

Wet Chem 1: The Wet Chemistry Lab is filled with all sorts of equipment. It only gets used intensively every three years when an overwintering chemist is here.
This is where we prepare the ozone sonde for blimp flying.

Wet Chem 2: The flow hood, sink, water distillation unit (and emergency shower pull cord in the distance).

North of these rooms is the Met Workshop. We have a lot of electronics gear as well as some basic mechanical tools (hammers, saws etc.). I tend to only saw things in here, or look for tools for things elsewhere, but Andy is the qualified electronic engineer this year and he's been spending a lot of time in here.

The workshop: Well used and well loved - be it a bit messy.

Next along this side is the storeroom. This is where we keep all of our spares for each experiment as well as enough balloons and sondes for a year or so, a lot of spare cables, mast equipment and ??** well, we're in the middle of going through it and we've already found a few gems.

The storeroom. Andy's sorting out the cables today (that's why the room's a bit of a mess). This room is always full- no matter how much you take out or put in.

The last two rooms aren't very interesting. One is the plant room where all of the services come in and are monitored. Brian the plumber does his daily checks here, we have a small meltank of our own water in this room and a lot of emergency medical equipment.

The Plant Room: The meltank on the very left, emergency medical equipment on the very right, pipes with a lot of water going through them to warm the building on the far left, electricity, transformers and things on the far right.

The incinerator toilet and sink.

At the end of this corridor is the toilet. We have a urinal (that I use with help from my trusty pee-funnel) and an incinerator toilet which burns the waste. Lovely.

I hope you've enjoyed the tour and your tea.
If you're actually in the area and would like a proper tour with a bit of science thrown in don't hesitate to drop in.

Blimp Flying

2006-09-06T06:31:00.000-03:00

THIS BLOG IS ON-GOING

September/October is Ozone Hole time. There's a big misunderstanding about what this is: What happens every year is that the very cold air in Antarctic in the stratosphere somehow 'eats up' or destroys ozone. And as we all know the ozone layer keeps harmful UV rays out of the atmosphere. But this only lasts a couple of months, and is greatly effected by the weather. So every year by November the ozone levels are back to normal again.

Our schedual was down for doing Blimp flights throughout September. I've talked about the science behind this project before (follow link). Bascially this hasn't much to do with the ozone measurements we take with the Dobson Spectrophotometer which measures the stratospheric ozone levels, but is local tropospheric ozone which is in the air at ground level (and just a little bit higher).

The Flights

We managed to get the helium box moved, weatherhaven constructed, winches dug in and blimp blown up before the beginning of September. To this date we've done 3 flights, 1st September, 7th September and th 15th of September. The beginning of September we had a number of ozone depletion events and were able to get the blimp up and do a couple of good flights. Not too much has gone wrong, besides a lost signal, wires getting uplugged, we got very cold and batteries not lasting very long (because they get cold) but those were all expected and we're doing our best to get round these problems.

We were then asked to do another flight- this time without an ozone depletion event. We did this on the 15th and it went very well.

Andy clearing snow from the motor of the electric winch. This is the primary winch, it used to be used for icedrilling and once appeared on Blue Peter (1986).
Our perfect accent/deccent rate is 5meters per minute.

Kirsty and the manual winch. This is attached to the blimp at a different point to the electric winch and is backup incase anything goes wrong.

We've still got another couple of weeks to do more flights and collect more data. Once I get a bit more feedback from the scientist at Cambridge about what sort of exciting conclusions they've come up with I'll post them here too.

The blimp flying with BART and the weatherhaven below. Mirages of the edge of the iceshelf in the background. Photo by Jules.

During the 2nd half of September the weather conditions weren't good enough for a flight. The next chance was one Saturday night, a bit blowy but within flying limits. Alex and I went out to set up the blimp before dinner (I was officially on my holidays at this time) but we found a tear in it. We took it into the Simpson and started repairing it, meanwhile we went to have dinner. The weather ended up being misty and gusty and just not pleasant (I know it's Antarctica etc), so we decided to try again tomorow hopeing that the ozone conditions would hold. No such luck.

It was the 10th of October that we managed our next flight (weather and Ozone levels have to be just right). But we weren't quick enough (or rather the wind speed and ozone levels conspired to give us a very small window) and the levels recovered before we were able to complete the flight.

Snow Pit Sampling

2006-08-23T06:41:00.000-03:00

One part of my job is to go to the CASLab (Clean Air Lab) everyday to change a small filter (or at least one of the three of us do). This filter collects aerosols in the air (more specifically sea salt aerosols). The lab itself is situated upwind and far enough away that the bases air isn't sampled that often (generators, exhausts, dozers). There are a number of other instruments running all the time, so that the scientists back at Cambridge can have a good general picture of what's going on.

Kirsty digging the hole in her 'oil spill suit'. The CASLab is in the back and the 30meter mast to the right.

From the LoVol (Low volume) filters we can see what aerosols were in the air everyday and where the air came from (anemometers). Every two weeks we change a HiVol filter (High Volume) which measures for the same particles, just over a longer time period. All of these filters are sent back to Cambridge at the end of the year (where all of the BAS scientists live) for Ion Chromatography analysis.

The big problem with ice cores is that we don't know how the concentrations of aerosols and gasses found in the ice cores relate to what was actually in the air at a time.

This snowpit sampling links the HiVol and LoVol aerosol concentrations found on the filters to the concentrations of impurities preserved in the snow. This should help improve calibrations of ice core records.

So- now for the fun bit. First of all we had to dig a pit. A big pit. And we couldn't contaminate the snow pack or the composition of the snow, so we couldn't walk on the bit we were about to sample (it's important that no-one has ever walked on it) and we couldn't get chemicals or fuel or even breath on the snow wall!

Kirsty in mid swing.

Digging finished!!! Me showing that the hole was 1.5m deep. 1m square and on the left are the steps going down.

Kirsty and I in the hole. I'm actually standing on a lot of snow that I'd just pushed in with me running to be in the photo.

The first 20 pots in the snow wall. They're sampled every 2cm.

Once the pots are pushed in and the depths are measured we used clean spatulas to scrape away the snow around the pot, and then (somehow) get the clean untampered snow into the pot and put the untouched lid on.

Kirsty in all her clean outside lab gear in front of the first 20 samples.

We took 60 samples, which is a lot of faffing about with little pots trying to get them in little bags and not touch either the pot or the snow. As well as the yellow oil spill suits, we wore brand new thin gloves, cleaned our boots, wore facemasks and a multitude of various plastic gloves. Lets hope that all worked.

Me trying to warm up by wearing my big bear paws and jumping about.

So the whole operation took us the day (getting prepared for it and lots of time spent trying to get warm again). Another one in two months, yay for Science in an Antarctic Context!!

BobNight and Women's Hour

2006-08-16T06:54:00.000-03:00

Not the two most related subjects, but I've a wee bit to mention today.

Bob

Firstly it was Bob's (Generator Mechanic) birthday on the 7th. He had a great day at the Penguins (best birthday ever!) and we celebrated the next Saturday night by all dressing up as famous Bob's (without letting him know of course). It was great to see him trying to work out what was going on- to be fair, he did catch on pretty quickly. A good amount of imagination went into the costumes as well, and I believe a good night was had by all. Nic made a big buffet of finger food that was put out on the pool table, and I think we're still eating the leftovers.

Liz, Me, Kirsty and Jules in the Halley BobSleigh Team.

My name's Vicki, I mean Bob- I'm a boy. Honest.... what was that Alex? Give me a P, please.

Dave didn't bother to dress up- he just came as himself. Photo by Bob.

The 16 of Us... photo by Bob.

I think it was a few days before that Jules introduced a great drinking game to us. It was painfully funny and went on the theme of ... bob. "G'day Bob, say g'day to Bob, Bob" etc... not the best for those who have trouble pronouncing things...

Liz
Next we come on to Women's Hour. This is a show that's broadcast daily on BBC Radio 4 . Liz our carpenter spoke live on this morning's show (click for the links). Her, Alex Gaffakin (an ex met-babe ('99 & '00)) and Gemma Clarke (the last summer's Structural Engineer) spoke about how easy it is for women to live in the Antarctic.
I can see how for many people that have visited here in the past it seems strange that women do. Britain in general was very slow at letting women winter, the first at Halley was only 10 years ago. That was well after one of the German bases was wintered by an all female team (1991), proving once and for all that there's no need for women to rely on men. Saying that- I want to stress that not all women would be good winterers, just like not all men would be- but it's a mental thing rather than physical, and more about your attitude to solving a problem than actual physical strength. So the point is, women rock and are great to winter with.

There's 5 of us this year, that's the most in Halley history. Me, Kirsty (Meteorologists), Vicki (Doctor), Nic (Chef) and Liz (Carpenter). Liz is more unusual than the rest of us, since she's a women in a male predominate occupation AND is in Antarctica. The most common jobs for women here are Scientists, and Doctors. Also, there's only two next year, and there's not likely to be many in '08 or '09 winters since it's a reduced compliment anyway (science is dropping down to an absolute minimum).

However, it really makes me laugh when 4 or 5 of us congregate in the kitchen looking for a good gossip. Liz is a brilliant pastry chef (she's had loads of practice this year) and Vicki often has fun making cakes or other desserts (how is it I'm not putting on weight?). I am a bit of a lover of things clean and tidy, and most of us have some sort of needlecraft on the go. So we're women who like to cook and clean. We live up to stereotypes but we also drive dozers, go ice-climbing, fly "death" kites, can dig for England and jack the hefty buildings. We totally rock.

Kirsty, Nicola, Vicki, Liz and Me at Club Nido in May.

Sun Up

2006-08-13T13:34:00.000-03:00

The sun has returned!!!

We had the ceremony on the 10th at 1400z, just after lunch. The youngest person on base, Kirsty (21) had the honour of raising a brand new Union Jack above the front door of the main building. We all stood outside to witness the event (Brian (who's on nights) even got up to watch). As usual there were many cameras flashing away and much heckling. Kirsty gave a very short speech which consisted of... 'no-one said I had to say a speech' and John filmed it.

Kirsty Raising the Flag - Photo by Jules

John's taking a lot of footage this year of everything from general base activities (Kirsty and Me on the dancemats) to once in a lifetime opportunities (going to see the Penguins). He's collecting the footage for the Natural History Museum's Antarctic Exhibition in London. It's strange to think that something I'm doing belongs in a Museum. Even the old weather data collection hardware and software (MAWSON) that I decommissioned last year's going to be in the exhibition.

John Filming the event for the Natural History Museum - Photo by Jules

We didn't actually see the sun that day. Fog came in quite quickly just before lunch (typical). We did however see it the next day. I'd just come back from the daily trip to the CASLab to change a filter (Clean Air Lab), had measured the new height of the Stevenson Screen and was coming up the stairs from collecting that weeks snow sample when I saw the shimmer of light on the horizon. I made a quick 'all stations' radio call- which no-one heard and went up to tell Andy and gaze at it for a little while. It's strange how uplifted a view of the sun can be- but it really is great. I didn't take any photos, but Anto, John and Mark were on a caboose moving and drum raising mission near the coast and I've managed to nick one of theirs.

The sun. It eventually got about half of the sphere above the horizon. Photo by Anto.

So that's it... the end of my second eternal winter. I really like the dark time inside the base getting to know each other, playing pool, watching a lot of films and just chatting. But equally I like the getting outside and doing things....

Previous knowledge of a winter is great when you know the best is yet to come.

Penguins!!!

2006-08-07T08:13:00.000-03:00

The Penguin trips have begun- it's our first opportunity to leave base since the sun went down and so I haven't left the kilometre or so boundary since April 23rd when I went to windy to raise the drumline. It's a big event for everyone on base.
We're only doing day trips at the moment, at least until everyone gets to see them once, then I think the trips will last a little longer with an overnight stay at the handy caboose.

The view from the abseil point. It's about 20m down to the group of people at the bottom. It's a bit misty, but you can see the Emperor Penguin colony as the dark patch at about 11 o'clock.
Photo taken by Anto at the end of the day (15:30).

The first trip was on the 1st of the month. Simon and Andy took skidoos and 1 nansen sledge between them and followed the creek 2 drumline to the caboose to see how well everything had survived the winter. Then they drove cross country to windy caboose, found a suitable abseil point, drilled the seaice to check it's thickness, checked out the penguin colony and then doo-ed back along the windy drumline (past tence, third person 'to doo'? weeent?).
Everything was set for the first big trip on Thursday. Nic, Vicki, Dave, Brian, Alex, Anto and Simon drove off in K23 in the morning and came back with huge grins, plenty of photos and looking quietly exhausted by dinner time.

My turn next. Liz, Chris, John, Mark and I were the tourists with Anto and Simon as the guides (Anto to look after the vehicle, sledge, caboose and drumline, and Simon to look after us and anything to do with ropes or ice). We were ready by 9am and had to wait for an hour or so while the snocat warmed up... no problem since it still wasn't light enough to drive anyway.

The Snocat and sledge all packed and ready to go to a day at the seaside (10:30).

After leaving at about 10:30 we had about 1 hour of bumpy driving to windy caboose. From there we set up putting on our harnesses, all the gear we'd need to get up and down the cliff, all our cameras, extra warm clothing, extra food and hot water. It was a 20 minute roped up walk to the edge of the ice shelf. It took another hour (really didn't feel like that long) to set up the ropes, and for the 7 of us to abseil down. I've done this sort of thing quite a few times now and really enjoy it. It's amazing how long everything takes though.

Me at the bottom of the abseil. Photo by Anto.

Once we were all present and correct on the sea ice we had another 20minute walk to get to the colony. It was a spectacular walk seeing the new seaice for the first time since it formed months ago. It's a lot bumpier than I'd seen it before with a lot more evidence of movement while it was forming. We even found an obvious tide crack by the colony which moved while we were there. Also in the distance, and always getting closer were moving living things that weren't any of the 15 other winterers. It's just us and the emperors over winter.
We really are in a desolate place.

Simon and Mark have a final look at the colony before we head back to the ice shelf (15:00). The tide-crack had just made a bit of a bang, you can also tell it's active by the marks the Penguins make- and they haven't crossed the line.

Watching the Emperors is fascinating. None of the eggs have hatched yet. We couldn't hear or see any chicks. I was shown a few unhatched eggs by the penguins who were more interested in how it was coming along than bothered by me. Standing downwind of the colony I found the smell a bit unbearable, so I just moved around quickly. They did their great walking in a spiral thing when the wind picked up a little. It reminded me about how different the colony acts and re-acts throughout the year. I've seen them in October and they're a lot more spread out and full of life. They didn't mind us being there one bit- almost engulfed us as part of the group. Then in January they were all over the place. There were a lot more of them (or at least it seemed that way), since there were males, females and the chicks and were all over the sea ice. It was much harder to get close to them then aswell (or maybe I didn't have the knack then since it was in my first summer).

Mark and Liz on the other side of the colony. The ice shelf is behind them. The colony was spread into two thin groups with a few walking between the two. The group's outline roughly followed the topography of the cliffs beside them.

They aren't threatened or scared of us (they would be if you hurled yourself into the colony, but we didn't try that). A lot of the penguins without eggs were curious of us, they would come up to us (just out of arms reach) if you sat still enough. I can't imagine they've got much else to do round there- especially if they've lost their egg. If there was an easy ramp up the ice shelf a few would probably find their way to the base, following the drumline 'oh, there's another penguin, I'll go and say hello... oh, it's just a drum, oh.. over there, there's another penguin. I'll go and say hello' etc....

Some curious Emperors with no eggs to look after. The left of the photo is blurred because the colony was moving around in a circle.

As someone said while you're sitting there you expect David Attenborough's voice to start off beside you. It is amazing and we're so lucky to get the chance to visit the colony, I absolutely love it. Just as we were leaving some mist moved in. That with perfect light, an amazing purple hue beginning around the sky... well- it's indescribable.

The whole day took a lot of energy (most of mine went because I was so excited) and time. We only ended up having about an hour and a half on the ice, and it felt more like 10 minutes. I can't wait to do it again.

A photo of the group of us from Windy Caboose. Photo by Anto.

Mid Winter

2006-06-22T12:20:00.000-03:00

Greetings and best wishes on this Mid Winter's week. It's been a fun and eventful week so far, I'll write what's gone on so far and then add more as and when it happens.

The 2006 Wintering Team just about to sit down for dinner.

Mid-Winter is the highlight of every winter. There is the perfect length of time between the ship leaving (end of Feb) and this big event to look forward to. It isn't too far off that it never gets here, but long enough to break the winter up nicely. We still have 6 months until the ship gets in for next relief, but the first plane will be in a month before the ship. We also have winter trips, penguin trips and lots of science going on in the spring (ozone hole time!). Things will get very busy very quickly as the sun (and perfect kiting conditions) come back, and so the summer will be here before any of us expect it. We're still very much enjoying the solitude and darkness but are still waiting for some really good auroras (they have been a little lacking of late). But the sky was amazingly, jaw-droppingly clear this morning with the Milky Way lighting up the snow, the Southern Cross high towards the South and Orion just setting to the East. Worth getting up early the morning after Mid-Winter's day (if not to do the Met and send the balloon off).

So, during the week we all get time off. Things obviously still need to be done like refuelling, filling the meltank, cook, nights, gash, met- but it's quite a relaxed week. Most of last weekend and the beginning of this week I've been down the garage working on my desperately difficult winter present I made for Alex (I can tell you now). I made a remote controlled Snocat, and it worked!!! It was a bit touch and go for a while, isn't perfect (tracks need work) and the body was a bit of a Blue Peter effort, but overall I was quite pleased with the results.

Here's a few photos of my baby being created:

The drive wheels were made out of bottle tops.

The carriers were braised together using a gas welder (it took a long time to get to this stage- but I wasn't in the mood to take photos of the process before this sort of point).

Then they were dipped into the snocat grey paint. Seemed a bit strange considering the size of a normal snocat carrier.

My Blue Peter effort on the body. The idea was to eventually make this out of Aluminium, but I just ran out of time.

Glueing the tracks together didn't actually work. Stapples were the trick in the end.

It was made from a remote control car kit left by a previous winterer (thank you Gareth). What I originally thought would be quite a simple operation changing the wheels to tracks, ended up being a big job but thanks to my technical advisor Anto, I was able to work out the best way to do it. Like all good mid-winter presents I wanted to keep it and I knowing what I know now I would never make another. I did however learn loads of new metal work skills which has brought me one step closer to being a blacksmith.

EVENTS

On the Friday and Saturday nights last weekend we all had enjoyable times in the bar as well as a lovely slide show provided by Bob of his days as a generator mechanic on small leisure boats. Amazing photos, great job and the places he showed us seem a world away.

On Sunday before mid-winter's day we had a Day of Film. I awoke at 10:30 and dragged my duvet to the newly set up sofa/pile of mattresses to enjoy 'It's a Wonderful Life' in big screen and surround sound. I was in (small) floods of tears. Then it was lunch. Life of Brian was the next film- but I was on an odd night shift that night, so took the opportunity to miss out on not only a film provided by me but nominated and voted for. Still I've seen it a million times and I'm lacking in sleep and little did I know at the time, the film was to be re-enacted later in the week! The next top voted for film was To Kill a Mockingbird, based on the book by Harper Lee that everyone reads at school. Excellent film. Old- great acting, very moving story. Then I think we had dinner and we found ourselves in France chasing the mystery behind 'A Very Long Engagement'. With an interval for a met observation and popcorn making we finished the film and with a mass exodus the rest of us put on 'A Muppet's Christmas Carol'. We all sung our way through the rest of the evening. A brilliant day for this young film lover.

Monday: Well I was on nightshift the previous night (added the peculiar 'Heathers' to my good film list), so I spent the morning in bed, and then the afternoon doing my present. We had an all base singles pool competition. 16 contestants, 15 games in a knockout format, best of three frames (5 for the final). All of the 1st round matches were finished by lunch and we started on the 2nd round. There were a few surprises with Kirsty beating Brian with an open-mouthed, super-amazing potting spree. Nicola's inconsistent awesome potting continued (it's the glasses) and we entered the Semi-final round with three girls and John. The match against John was a little tense, could have gone either way (it's a game of two halves?), but ended with me winning 2-1. Kirsty beat Nicola (her luck had run out) to leave Kirsty facing me in the final. The two MetBabes prevail... It was a fun, tense match with both of us using our putting-off skills to the max. Kirsty was winning 2-0 at one stage. There were a few tournament winning shots missed by her, and I somehow managed to scrape back a win. I'm sure she deserved the prize, but the balls fell favourably for me (I feel that potting three solids off a break against John was taking the piss).

Tuesday: I think this day for me (and many others) was lost in panicky last minute changes/finishes to winter presents.

The evening was spent by being beaten by our fellow BAS FIDS at King Edward Point (KEP) on South Georgia Island. I stopped in at this base a year and a half ago on the way to Halley and had a tour round the base, tried to set up a new weather data collection system and did a walk or two around the island. I think the base is most people idea of perfect scenery, though Captain Cook was famous for hating it (hell on Earth the phrase he used?). It's beautiful with many seals (a;lksdfh;aslkdf run!!!), penguins, birds and more. I saw an albatross up really close there, did a lot of running from fur seals, terns and skuas and got some lovely photos of King Penguins (aptly named). Ok, so the point is I've been there. I also know a couple of the winterers there from courses that we did together in preparation to coming down South, so it was really good to chat to them on messenger. We had two webcams set up, one on the bar, and one on the darts board and chatted and related our scores. The KEP team won gallantly even though we were ahead by 200 points on one match (we just couldn't get those doubles!!). And so the Antarctic Darts Tournament continues...

Wednesday: Mid Winters Day - 21st June

For me this started with John the Base Commander waking me up with a lovely cup of tea and orange juice. Ten minutes later, still in my pit room, I heard a lot of radio noise coming from the corridor and suddenly remembered that Simon, the Field Assistant had said that he had a surprise for us all that morning. I rushed out of bed, went to the bootroom and stuck some boots on, my big goose-down jacket, a hat and some gloves on to arrive on the platform just in time to witness a brilliantly orchestrated, one-man fireworks display made with a few mini-flares.

Mid Winter is full of traditions and the next one I partook in is one of my favourite. The mid-winter run. It's neither untraditional or taboo to do a mixed gender run (you're so cold, who cares?), but 4 of us girls had decided to do it together, supporting the not-so confident streakers. So Vicki the doctor, Nicola the chef, Liz the chippy and I planned our assault on the 150m run around the building in -40C (10knots of wind). There's a balance to be struck on such a run to not run too fast that your lungs are overworked and you get frostnip inside your nose, but not too slowly that you're out there for a long time. I'm also a little confused about how no-one heard us stomping around on the snow, shrieking words of encouragement to each other, 'this is a tricky bit, careful on the sastrugi', 'almost half-way now', 'I'm SO numb'. We found a poor unsuspecting Electrician and made him take this photo of us in the bootroom after the event. Five other people streaked that day (1 person twice) and I'm pleased to say that 100% of the girls on base did it. You boys are such wuses!

Me, Vicki, Liz and Nic defrosting.

The boys starting their streak. Co-incidentally this was Local Apparent Noon (the time when the sun is at it's highest for our longitude (13:45z)). Gorgeous colour.

Champagne breakfast followed the run. The breakfast was of course provided by John, this year's Winter Base Commander who I'm afraid gets a raw deal on mid-winter's day. Not only providing us with a lovely breakfast, but it's his first night of a 10-night nightshift. No alcohol for him!!

I was still finishing off wrapping up my snocat when some more streakers took the quiet corridor time to do their run. At 14:30 it was time for a big screen movie 'The Thing'. Set in the Antarctic has quite a realistic view of base life, and is horrifically funny.

Evening drinks began at 17:30z, everyone was looking gorgeous having turned out their wardrobes for their finest of clothes. Dinner started at a punctual 18:00 and was amazing. Nicola defeated us by the main meal, having consumed seafood, sorbet and (my favourite) fried canembert.

Nic putting the finishing touches on the starter.

'Just a small one for me'

By 20:30 we were on to the present giving. Each person handing out a named wrapped present from under the tree. The person the present was for would open it carefully then the person who it was from would shout 'not like that, the other way up- ahh.. you just ruined it'. No, it all went well and was great to see the reason various people have been scurrying off to whichever workshop.

The penguin Bob gave me. Photo by Jules

Everyone (except Bob) and the pile of brilliant presents. Photo by Bob.

At 21:30 we listened to the mid-winter broadcast (click on the link to listen). This is when BAS get free air time to plug the latest news and a reminder that we exist. It's brilliant for us to hear messages from home, and I hope the broadcast keeps on going (even though we've got constant internet and good phone access it's still very much appreciated).

The rest of the evening went merrily along. We had far too much food to eat and there's still a pile of drink that we didn't manage to consume, though we spent a lovely evening admiring each other's presents, hard work and ingenuity.

Thursday:
Well I was back on Met Shift. We had had a network problem on Wednesday morning, so I was still encouraging instruments to log. I believe a copy of Dr. Zhivago was finally found and played in the afternoon. A Quiz was put together by the keeper of all knowledge, Simon. No more will be said on this subject since my team lost.

Friday:
Games night. We started at the bar with some lovely cocktails made by Vicki and Dave. We played a couple of games of 'murder' where Brian went on a vicious killing spree and then sat down in the lounge for a long game of 'Articulate'. This was very amusing (the cocktails had played their part) and there was a lot of cheating going on. Again my team lost, but I don't think it was any one particular person's fault... more because we were just rubbish as a team. Pictionary followed the same lines as the previous game... Mark, how is that a Robin?

Saturday:
Cabaret Night. This was a superb and excellent night. We have talent, ingenuity and shamelessness coming out of our ears. Dave, Mark and Andy are all naturals on the whole guitar and singing format, but there was much, much more. Too hard to describe.
But I have it all on video!!!!
The DVD will be released following production and is subject to shipping (sea-ice) conditions. All orders by request. Blank DVD's must be provided prior to purchase.

Dave and Andy play a Nirvana song. Photo by Anto.

Brian, Bob, Liz and Chris gave us a renindition of Always look on the Bright Side of Life with Mark on the guitar. Photo by Anto.

And so another Mid-Winter week is over. The workshops are still a mess from present making, the cellar is still very much full of alcohol, the decorations are beginning to fall down by themselves and people are starting to peer out of the windows again- double check the temperature and with a worried look on their faces say 'I wish it would warm up enough for the dozer to start- that meltank's murder'.

Times Gone By

2006-05-29T08:17:00.000-03:00

One of the first things that I appreciated when I arrived here 15 months ago is the winter photograph display in the dinning room. Two walls are filled with group photos, one from every wintering year. It gave me an enormous sense of belonging straight away, I thought 'I'm going to be part of two of those groups'. Most of the photos are in black and white and contain three rows of around 20 winterers peering through their hoods. Until recently these were all taken, developed and printed in the base dark room, but thanks to digital cameras and printers our last years one is not only in colour, but was photo-shopped in order to get everyone's best side!

This is my favourite photo of the bunch. It's from 1971 and everyone just seems really happy. I love the way the dogs are more interested in what the people are doing than the camera.

The strangest thing about the photos are that the groups haven't really changed that much. Most photos were taken outside, over the years a few people have chosen to wear inside clothes. These are some of the only clues to which year the photo might be from- that and the aviator sunglasses (and the congo line from the 80's- nice). Our clothes haven't changed that much -we camp with almost the same gear as Scott and the other early explorers did. But two significant things are different; dogs and women. The Antarctic Treaty bans all flora and fauna that aren't native to Antarctica. In 1994 all of the dogs were removed from the continent- most of them died though. After all of the years of isolation from the rest of the world that the dogs weren't resistant to diseases other dogs were. From what I've read the dogs made a big difference to base life (trawling through the old base reports is enlightening). I can imagine having a base cat but have never seen dogs here- so seeing them on films and documentaries is a bit strange. The other difference is the absence of women until 1996. The timing causes the obvious joke that women had to be brought in to replace the dogs, but the reality is that Britain was very late in letting women winter. I suppose a unisex base of either gender would be slightly psychologically easier, but a mixed gender base simply reflects the society we come from and so should be encouraged. Personally I don't see why anyone would have a problem with women here (some people do), and think that the 'good winterer' gene has nothing to do with the X or Y chromosomes, but more to do with whichever genes dictate your personality. This year five of the 16 of us are women and we contribute wonderfully to the base (my digging arm is getting really strong). But that's not because we're women, but because the mix of people (with everyone's individual strengths and weaknesses) on base is perfect.

So why am I waffling on about times gone by? Well, we had an old FIDS evening on Saturday (FIDS being Falkland Island Dependency Survey- which is what all British staff who come South are called). Chef cooked us up a lovely meal using only tinned and dehydrated foods- though as Nicola pointed out, our regular menu hasn't changed that much (though we're not allowed to eat the wildlife anymore). We all dressed up and even attempted an oldie mock photo.

Most of the 2006 crew sitting down for Oldie FIDS evening meal. Photo by Bob. Note Anto's Irish flag to combat the Union Jack and BAT Flag (yes we know the Union Jack is the wrong way up- perhaps done on purpose to reflect taht we're in a very British world but are in the Southern Hemisphere....)

The main influence behind this themed evening was for us to give slide shows to each other. Three of us have avidly been using the dark room, printing off Black & White prints and creating colour slides. I bought an SLR just before I came down and thought I'd give the dark room a go, but spent the first year sending colour print films back to the UK to be developed. Andy and Anto have since got me into colour slides and the quality difference from a digital camera is amazing. It's such a shame that there are no plans to put a dark room in Halley 6.
So Anto, Andy, John (just had some lying around) and I showed a selection of our slides, which I believe went down very well (though South Africa Andy? on a FIDS night?).
We also put on a couple of cinefilms 'The Surfboats of Agra' and a jazz themed 'The Free Piston Engine' were the choice feature films. The base has a very large supply of these cinereel films and I'm not sure if it's possible to watch them all through a winter. Most of the reels are 20 minute news reels, but we have some longer features. They've been supplied to the base by oil companies over the years so the general themes are 'look what this engine can do', 'isn't technology great' and 'drive as far and as fast as you like, there's always going to be more oil'. However the best film in my opinion is the TransAntarctic Expedition (we seem to have more than one copy of this?!?) which set off from Shackleton base (which was not far from here when it existed). We showed this over the summer along with 'The Last Tram' which is about the end of Trams in London Town.

I regularly have a browse through the zfids website (see link to the right) and a recent update was this photo of a Piano in Halley 1. I must say that I am very jealous of this guy. Beside family and friends, the biggest things I miss are pottering about in the garden and playing my piano. There's nothing better to blow the cobwebs away than a bit of Beethoven bashed out an octave lower than it should be. On that note....

Ok- lots of apologies for writing this close to a month ago and not publishing until now... mid-winter blog to come soon (the festivities are ongoing).
:o)

Club Nido

2006-05-14T07:16:00.000-03:00

Club Nido - A club held on occasions in the Garage.

Named after the milk substitute we drink here - quite tasty. Real milk is one of the things I thought I'd miss. I drunk gallons of it at home- but I don't miss it at all.

Anyway, there are only 16 of us on base, how can we have a club night? In the summer it worked quite well with so many people on base. We had a BBQ at the same time, and was quite fun. But during the winter Club Nido has to be different. One person has to stay on the Main Platform for safety reasons. Then you can't guarantee everyone's in the mood for it on the night. So 12 of us ended up in the garage, drinking our chosen beverages wondering what the night would end up like. We even started out in gender groups like you would at a BBQ at home... how strange. But us girlies covered ourselves in glitter and sidled on over to the bench all of the boys were nervously perching themselves on.

A blurred photo of the group from the Garage balcony.

The best Met Team photo yet... I think I was trying to persuade Andy out of his overalls.

On Friday and Saturday nights we tend to congregate in the Bar that's in the Lounge a little more than during the week, but it's really really nice to have a change of venue. It's also great to have so much space to hoon about in (we played twister and had at least one piggy back competition). Kirsty, Anto and I did most of the preparations dolling the garage out in different glittery lights and throwing old sheep-skin rugs everywhere we could. But Anto was the most put out since he had to vacate all of the vehicles from the premises and clean the place from top to bottom. So thanks for that Anto. It was very much appreciated. Something that made this a little more interesting was the 60+knot blow outside, Mark managed to hurt his ankle on the 500m walk home. But besides that it's great here... no waiting for taxi's, no drunken strangers in the streets. This is a hermit's heaven.

Vicki and Dave.

These guys discovered that I'm not as light as I look. And I bruise easily.

After a few games of twister the spinning board was only held for show as the person with the board did their best to tangle everyone else up.

All Photos by Anto (?).

Sundown during Nightshift

2006-05-08T14:31:00.000-03:00

Sundown
The sun went down for the last time until August. The tradition is that we don't fly our flag while the sun's down, so the oldest FID on base takes it down. This was Liz's job (we have lots of very young people on base this year), and she did it wonderfully.

Photo by Julius.

The exact date and time of the final viewing of the sun was a well discussed topic here. I think we decided 'sundown' depends on three conditions. 1. Your height above sea-level 2. How much of the sun's disc you count as set (whole thing, a small amount, half or anywhere inbetween) and 3. Local atmospheric conditions. Now it might sound as though I'm trying to back out of the exact date with excuses, but we get a lot of mirages here. I'd say at least a couple of days that people could still see the sun it was only miraged. But then you could see it, so it wasn't set- or was it? A normal sunset is generally agreed to have the center of the sun just under 1 degree below the horizon. Our height above sealevel changes from day to day with the tides, but is about 35m on average on a platform, but then you could be on the roof, or the snowlevel. And the biggest factor is the weather on the day. If there's cloud on the northern horrizon, you won't see the sun. If there's a mirage then you will see it- but it's already set...

In any case, we had a big party with cocktails and a drinking competition on Saturday night, took the flag down around 3pm on Sunday (30th April) and then had a BBQ on the front veranda in the evening.
Lovely.

Nights
This last week I was on nightshift. We live in an extreme environment, on our own and it is very important to have one named, sober person for everyone to rely on 24 hours a day. The gash person (a daily cleaner chosen by rota) is in charge of radio chat, making sure everyone's safe and where they should be during the day (as well as the communual areas daily cleaning), and nightshift covers the remaining 13hours (8pm till 9am).
People have written about this part of baselife on blogs before. I suppose it is different for everyone, although I approach it the same everytime. Because it is just one week of swapping your body clock, I never quite get onto nights very well. I'm generally quite unmotivated to do very much (perhaps something to do with not being outside and doing a lot of activity), but potter about the base doing odd cleaning jobs. I normally choose a few films that I haven't seen before, a couple of documentaries and a TV series to watch while I cross-stitch (I don't require any more- thank you).
Nights has it's good and bad points:
Good- it's nice to be by yourself for a bit. Have total choice on what you watch, free reign in the kitchen and it's quite nice to have a cosy week inside.
Bad- I end up being on a totally different wavelength to everyone else, being high as a kite in the morning when people get up and are very groggy, but not really wanting to see many people when I get up and everything on base is happening. I also get a bit fidgety until after midnight- so don't have the attention span to sit and chat or join in with anything until people have gone to bed! Oh, and I can't stand sitting in front of a computer for a long time on the Laws Platform.
Here's a few photos of the things I did manage to do:

Andy and Alex on the extensive Halley Climbing Wall. They were able to give me a few hints and tips, and I can now traverse the wall without too much trouble. It definetly woke me up a bit.

Welding school was taken by Anto and Andy. Dave and I were giving MIG a go. I can see why it's used in preference to Arc a lot of the time.
Photo by Anto.

I made some croissants on my last night. They actually turned out quite well.

The trick to getting back onto days is to help clean out the grifters.
The grifters are tanks that sit underneath the toilets and sinks, there's 5 on the main platform. They need to be checked and cleaned every month or so. This is Brian the plumber's job.
The gloves are definetly required.

Dressing up (again) & Drum Raising

2006-04-21T07:52:00.000-03:00

SCI-FI NIGHT

Well surprise, surprise we've been dressing up again. This time with a sci-fi theme. This was the main reason/excuse for cutting my hair in the first place. The mohawk was just an inbetween stage (I was going through).

Me as Ripley. Photo by Kirsty.

I went as Ripley from the Aliens saga. Brilliant films; yes the first two were the best, the third has promise and then looses it half-way through, and the fourth is dominated by the annoying purity of Winoda Ryder's character (but then that's the point). Aliens versus Predator... now that's where it's at. That film has it all- if you've not seen it, do. Bring popcorn - get ready for pure entertainment (and it's set in the Antarctic!!!).

John (I mean Spok) and Jean-Luc Piccard. Photo by Anto.

Kirsty and I provided a very simple general sci-fi knowledge quiz. Unfortunately two of the other sci-fi fans were busy enjoying windy and cold weather out in the field. So people did well to get 6 out of 35 points. Captain Piccard won with 11/35?

Nicola put on another beautiful spread of food so all in all another great night - and not too many attacks from suspicious looking Aliens.

DRUM RAISING

We have three small cabooses (3 to 4 bunks) near the base. Cabooses are small huts on sledges and a great way to get away from base and have a good night out. One is at wonky, 1km away from base which people can stay at all year round, no matter what the weather. One is at Windy Bay, on the coast and handy for the local Emperor Penguin colony. The other was at Creek 2, which is where the ship has been mooring at recently- except the caboose was moved to the half-way point at N9 for 1st relief and has been sitting on the container line ever since. The creeks are a great place to get onto the sea-ice and boast a number of possibilities for leisure activities (most of which involve ropes, ice axes and abseil devices). So a group of us moved the caboose back to Creek 2 ready for short holidays for anybody with a free weekend.

Between Windy Caboose, and Creek 2 Caboose are lines of drums to mark the route (12km and 18km away from base). Because of the ever accumulating snow we need to pull these drums up and put them back on the new snow level. We thought we'd do it on the way. And while we were out, we might as well stay the night. So on Friday afternoon Nic, Alex, Anto and I set out for Creek 2 with the caboose. It didn't take long to get to Creek 2. We dropped off the caboose, took a few photos of the sea-ice (visibility and contrast weren't very good) and set off drum raising.

Nicola, Me, Alex and Anto outside Windy Caboose ready for another day of Antarctic Heroism (photo by Anto).

I'm sure people have described this before. It's simple, yet I tend to get a lot of satisfaction out of it. You drop a loop of strop over the drum with one end attached to a sledge and wait for the snocat to pull the drum out of the ground. Then you replace the drum on a fresh, flat bit of snow and dig it in a bit so it doesn't blow away too easily. I think it took us 3 hours to do the C2 line. We stopped off at base to replenish our stock of new drums (they're all empty petrol drums), and headed to Windy. It was getting dark by then, so we settled in to the caboose for the night with some nice hot tea, vegetarian man-food for dinner and bridge, wine, guitar and singing for afters.

Nic driving K23. We took it in turns to do all the different jobs.
The driver can see how the drum raisers are doing by keeping the window open and looking through the wing mirror.
Photo supplied by Anto.

Me celebrating a successful lasso attempt.
Alex jumping off the sledge equipped with every Halleyites favourite companion. A Shovel.
Photo supplied by Anto.

Our intentions were to stay for only one night. Fortunately a gale whipped up over night and we were caboose bound for an extra day. The caboose is great- but it has no toilet facility except for a good old Antarctic 'red' flag. A pee flag. Normally I'd be at ease with this situation. But it was blowing, 45knots or so (all the wind sensors at base broke, so we don't know how windy it got). In any case, I had a lot of difficulty standing up, let alone using the facilities. All I can think about it how much worse it would have been without the aid of a pee-funnel.

So, here we are at one of the most remote bases on the most remote continent on Earth, for a weekend to an even more remote small caboose- and we sit and play Bridge. I love this place.

Anto serenading us with Irish lullabies. Photo supplied by himself.

Alex after coming in from the 45+knot gale outside.

GARAGE STUFF

On my days off I normally relish my lie in (I like sleeping). But I know we're not going to have sunlight for long- so I'm normally on the scrounge for something to do outside (when the wind isn't right for kiting). It's never difficult to find. Drum raising is great, but I've been working as an apprentice mechanic in the garage too. I've learnt how to give the Tundras a basic service (the smallest in our fleet of skidoos) and have more recently been helping to service one of the three bulldozers (a D5 Cat). This involves great fun messing about underneath the dozer and then getting covered in oil. I am quickly developing a passion for large plant.... I like driving them too.

Me under the D5. Photo supplied by Anto.

Mowhawks and Sunsets

2006-04-08T09:34:00.000-03:00

Well I suppose the first bit of news since the last post is my hair- or at least the lack of it. I'd had an idea a long time ago that it would be interesting to see what it'd be like with a shaved head... and since I won't be out 'in public' or going to any job interviews any time soon I thought this was the time. I also adheard to public pressure and got myself a mowhawk- since it seems the thing to do. There's four of us on base with them now (Jules, Dave, Me and Alex).

Dave, Me, Alex and Julius sporting our trendy haircuts.

The sun has been setting quite regularly now. It may seem like a strange sentence, but the winter is obviously drawing in, quite quickly. The sunsets are getting longer and longer and outdoor activities after dinner are a distant memory. If the perfect kite-flying weather isn't on my day off (or lunchtime)- too bad. Speaking of which- it was perfect the other day and my gnarley jumps are getting bigger and bigger. So much fun!! I've also finally managed a full cross-country ski around the perimeter (8km in under 2 hours - with moments to look at the view of course). Not too bad. And I can only improve.

The Simpson Platform.

It's quite dark at night now, I've got my clear goggles, headtorch and bear paws (very warm gloves) out from summer storage . Last night I even had to hold onto the handline as a guide to get to work and back. Something that I haven't had to do in a long time (gale force winds wipping up the snow and darkness made actual visibility as far as my headtorch would glare).

Dr. Julie.

Us girlies (5 of 16) had a slumber party the other night. Well, it was a bit of a mixed affair. A few of 'the guys' set up a disco in one of the workshops while us 'girls' spent our time painting nails, putting on face masks and doing our makeup. I don't know what it is about men dressing up as girls in Antarctica- but it happens... quite a lot.

Every month (or there about) each of the Antarctic stations sends HQ a webdiary to put on the public internet site. We take it in turns to write them and try to include all of the base's activities. Before the internet was available to us, this was a very good way for our families and friends to see up to date pictures- but I suppose now, everyone's doing their own blogs.
In any case I read the ones from the other bases- and I'd like to point you to Rothera's February Diary, since it's very well written and might help explain Antarctic life a little better.
There's also a link on the right of this page to Halley's webdiaries.

Pee Collecting and Exhibitions

2006-03-22T14:47:00.000-03:00

A friend excitedly rang me up the other day to tell me that she'd just been around an exhibition of our base (Halley V) on Cockburn Street in Edinburgh. This was showing art work produced by Simon Faithful (follow the link for his website) on the Artists and Writers program.

All of these drawings were done by Simon Faithful and so any copyright belongs to him. Please contact him if you want a copy. 1. Snow at Halley 2. Someone walking to the Simpson platform (something I do two or three times a day).

He came down from the Falklands on the ship (the Shackleton) with me in my incoming summer (04/05). We stopped at Signy on the South Orkneys and Bird Island, KEP, Grytviken, Husvik and Stromness on South Georgia. Then he stayed at Halley during relief doing various 'artist type' things like letting a balloon off with a figure attached to it, wandering around and drawing. Then he left with the ship again for the outward journey. I quite enjoyed having him with us, with all the 'working' men like the ship's crew and the steel erectors about it was nice to have someone else sitting, reflecting and taking it all in and then seeing what was of note to him from his drawings.

3. Post on the pool table (I look forward to December when they'll be our next post due in) and finally... 4. A drawing of me lying on the ship deck asleep- very hungover. While we were on the ship, he showed us a lot of other really cool projects that he'd worked on. They'll all be linked from the site too.

The artist and writers program is when two artists win a grant to come down to one of the bases for the Austral summer. They do various things like from writing symphonies using seal farting noises to strapping a GPS to themselves and walking around a base. For anyone that's interested in applying for the grant here's the link, but I think the date's up for this years applications. Next time though?

So that brings me nicely onto pee-collecting. This is to do with the doctor's MSc who has chosen to study the relationship with sleep patterns and light. The opportunity to study human behaviour here is very unique and I'm surprised that BAS doesn't push for more done. It is all voluntary and this one isn't too intrusive so most of us are taking part. We wear 'actiwatches' which measure the amount of light and movement to our wrists. I think it must measure the acceleration and not total movement. Every week we have the data downloaded and Vicky can work out which days we slept in. We also keep a sleep diary so she knows if we were dozing, sleeping or drunkenly unconscious. On this one we give a subjective view of how well we slept. So what's this got to do with urine I hear you ask??
Well, every month we need to record our levels of ???? which you can measure in the pee. So first we have to pee into a jug and record the total amount, then every 4 hours we take a 5ml sample of that and throw the rest down the loo. We do this for 48hours every month. What we're assaying for in urine is 6-sulphatoxymelatonin (aMT6s) - a metabolite of melatonin, the day/night hormone. It's to do with circadian rhythms and all that.
We also do an intense pee sampling campaign when we're going onto, are on and coming off nightshift (once every 16 weeks) to see if the ease of which to come on and off nightshifts is different here than in the UK. We'll have our blood sampled later in the year, as well as a few psychological questionaires to determine if we're night or day people and if we're getting more low through the year.
It's all very interesting and isn't too troublesome. Can't wait to tell if I'm a early or late person... genetically I mean. See if I'm going with or against the grain.

Sledge Buttercup

2006-03-19T12:20:00.000-03:00

I've just come back from my annual 'pre-winter' trip. This means 10 days of Antarctic Travel, camping, skidooing about, abseiling, crevasses and all that. Excellent fun and sanity saving.

Photo of Anto, Simon (eating ice-crystals) and me inside a crevasse. Photo taken by Nicola.

Unfortunately it's weather dependent. Need I remind you that I live on the windiest, coldest, dryest continent on Earth (though it DOES snow here).

DAY 1: Stuck on base. Very windy. Gale force winds. A small amount of inside packing done. Go through some rope skills.

DAY 2: Still stuck on base. Not so windy, but still too bad to drive in. More rope work done. All sledges packed and ready to go.

Photo of Nicola finishing tying up the sledge.

These are Nansen Sledges, made of Ash and are very flexible. We tow one sledge each behind our skidoos (doos). We then link pairs of skidoos up to increase our safety in crevassed areas. On them we carry everything we need including food, medical suplies, sleeping units, radios, tents, fuel for cooking, warmth and the skidoos and spares for the skidoos. We have a lot more stuff than we need- but you never know how long you might get stuck out there for.

DAY 3: 9am rise and leaving by 10:30. A gorgeous 4 hour ride to 2nd Chasm camp. There we spend a couple of hours putting up our tents, refuelling doos and then putting them under tarps. Then we had a cup of tea and some dinner. Then we went through another small amount of rope work, and retired to Simon and Anto's tent for the radio sched.

Photo of Simon and Anto's tent at night, taken by Anto.

DAY 4: A great day out to the local wind scoop. This location offers a few small crevasses, an overhang and varying slopes to practice our rope, boot and crampon work on. It was all good fun and it's great to have a refresher on everything. Anto and I have done most of this before but Nicola hadn't so she did really well to learn so much in a day. Just doing stuff like this is fun- it doesn't matter how many times I do it. We went back to the tents for bacon sandwiches and a warm up at lunch, and were absolutely exhausted by the evening radio sched(20:00).

Photo of me just after I'd abseiled down, taken by Anto.

Nic ice-picking out a ladder for herself. The campsite is in the background.

Series of Anto jumarring out of a crevasse. Click on the image to make it larger.

DAY 5: The plan (now that we were all trained) was to go out the next day into the wilds of the hinge zone (only named since I haven't ventured that way yet). But alas- the weather wasn't favourable. It was Nicolas Birthday so we spent the afternoon in the boy's tent playing cards, chatting and drinking various warming beverages.

DAY 6: Leaving day... but the contrast was bad again!!! So another day of lazing in tents... it's some life- but someone's got to do it. A 10 hour bridge game went on today- 13:00 till 23:00, with regular dinner, tea, radio and pee breaks.

DAY 7: Awoke to good contrast (alas) and the full moon out beautifully framed by the door (07:15). We quickly put on the water for breakfast (hot musily) and tea (coffee for Nic), and cooked the rest of the bacon while we were at it.
There's a dilema when you're camping in the field that, since we were only alotted 7 days to fit our holiday into (including 2 days of travelling there and back) you could be out there for months- worst case. I think the record's 40 odd days. So do you eat all of your bacon straight away, or save it for days you'll actually be at base for?
Anyway, it was a beautiful morning. I didn't take any photos since it was one of those 'couldn't do it justice' moments. Low ground fog in the chasms between the frozen in bergs, diamond dust everywhere, a big sun pillar, halo and sun dogs. Just had to be there I'm afraid.
It took us until 10:00 to be ready to leave, which is pretty good going. Then it took us only another 3 hours to drive back to base. We only just beat the looming altocumulus that crept in from the west. Which was good- can you imagine having to stop and set up camp all over again, just after taking it all down? Not fun.

So- Sledge Buttercup (not sure who came up with that name)- excellent fun. Only away for 5 days- was wanting more....

Contrast Explained: The ease with which features on a snow surface can be defined. eg: footprints, skidoo tracts, sastrugi.
Reduced contrast is generally caused by thickenning cloud. The cloud diffuses the available sunlight as the light bounces up and down and all over the place making it impossible to distingish features in the snow. It also reduces with falling snow. If the snow is drifting or blowing we won't be travelling either.

You can describe it as nil contrast, poor, moderate or good.
Nil: Footsteps and undulations are indiscernible at more than a few paces.
Poor: Skidoo tracks, etc become indistinct at more than 50 meters.
Moderate: Skidoo tracks, etc become indistinct at more than a few kilometers.
Good: Surface features clearly defined as far as the eye can see.

We were looking at somewhere between nil and nil to poor while we were tent bound and moderate to good when we left.

The Beginnings of Winter

2006-03-06T10:07:00.000-03:00

The winter has begun, everyone else has left, we are all on our own....

If someone gets hurt- the Doctor is here to fix them. If they need more help we'll have to ask other countries who might still have planes/ships running. I suspect it would require a US Hercules.

If a building burns down we have others to live in.

If the ice-shelf breaks off.. well there's plans, but none of them are ideal. Lets just hope it doesn't happen.
And we are on our own.

We are 16 winterers. A mixed bunch, all from different backgrounds and we've all done a unique set of jobs and qualifications to get here.

The 2006 winterers. Photo set up by Bob Pratt (we're not in the right order for my list).

We are an Electrician (Mark), Carpenter (Liz), Plumber (Brian), Generator Mechanic (Bob), Vehichle Mechanic (Anto), Chef (Nicola), Field Assistant (Simon), Communications Manager (Dave), Base Commander (John), Doctor (Vicki), 2 Electronic Engineers (Julius and Chris), Data Manager (Alex) and 3 Meteorological Observers (Andy, Kirsty and Myself, Frances).

We are the 2006 Halley Bay Wintering Team.

Winter Meal

Our winter started with a fantastic meal prepared by Nicola, who was (and still is) trying to strike a fine balance between keeping the fresh food as long as possible, and not letting it go to waste. It was on a Mexican theme since we'd been sent so many peppers and avacados.. and it was tasty.

The dinner table with Andy, Jools, Dave and Vicki.

It was a good introduction to each other and was a lot of fun. Most of the team had trained in Cambridge together- on various courses and meetings. Simon and I had not been in the UK during this time (Simon's just come from Rothera), so we hadn't really met as a 'team' before now.
Saying that we've got 10 months to get to know each other.

During the day we had had the famous 'room swap' to deal with. Fortunately for me, tradition says that 2nd winterers get first pick of the rooms. But to my dismay it's previous owners had left it in a bit of a state! It took me three days of cleaning and fumigating before I moved in... and it still smells...

We also picked who we would be making Mid-winter presents for. This tradition is quite fun, since everyone has to make something for one other person and we give them to each other on Mid-winter day (June 21st- essentially our Christmas). Who you have is also a big secret - so don't tell anyone, but I have to make something for *******.

Melt Tank Party
Another tradition that we have here is to have an annual Melt Tank Party.

This involves a bunch of drunk, de-hydrated people sitting in what was the summer accommodation's water supply. It's a lot of fun- and very cramped. And it happens to be my annual bath as well.

Kirsty, Vicki and Nic. She's trying to open a bottle of wine with steamed up glasses. Good effort all round.

We managed 13 in the 5'x5'x7' tub.

I suppose I should mention why we're able to do this. Well- first of all instead of the 70 or so people in the summer season, there's only 16 of us now. This means that the summer accommodation building (the Drewry) can e shut down over the winter to save fuel. It's been designed for this. But- since it's left to get cold all of the water needs to be drained out of all of the systems. So the meltank would have needed to be cleaned and emptied anyway.

So the winter begins...

Goodbye Shackleton

2006-02-28T09:53:00.000-03:00

On Saturday the ship arrived at N9, moored up to the ice and was ready for the second relief of the Summer season. The last time the R.R.S Shackleton visited Halley was over christmas time when we had a long N9 relief. N9 is 50 or so km away and is rarely used (though it's been used for the last three reliefs now). Normally we would use one of the creeks which are much closer to the base (18km max), but there was no sea-ice and so the ship couldn't moor up to anything.

My last view of the R.R.S Ernest Shackleton.

For the ship time is money, as is all of the fuel that the snocats burn to and from it. When there's not enough money for fuel or the prices rise then money is taken away from the science projects. This all means that the lack of sea-ice isn't just bad for the Penguins, it's bad for science too.

Most of the cargo due to go North was put on the ship at first call. I think there were 14 sledges of cargo (mainly waste produced over the summer) to go this time. Mostly it was people that needed delivering, all of the summer staff and the outgoing winterers. A convoy of 7 snowcats set out from Halley for the long journey to N9 twice, once on Saturday and once on Monday.
I was on the first wave which meant I got a night on the ship. Halley is amazing, a great place to live- but the ship is somewhere else, anywhere else. It also happened to have been my home for 2 months in 2004 (October 23rd until December 22nd), so I love getting the chance to go on it. As soon as the call was made that we were staying for the night I turned on the sauna, got in and sweated. Not because I was working hard, but because I was hot... that was a strange feeling. I then had a very long shower (we have severe water restrictions on base), and then went up to the red room for a few drinks. Another amazing thing was salad! I'm not a big fruit person, but salad I like- tomatoes, lettuce, cucumber!!! wow. It was all fantastic.

The sea ice is forming again. This produces seasmoke (the same way that sweating cools your skin down). With the sun sitting low in the sky it was quite breath-taking.

The seasmoke made some fantastic patterns on the surface... quite mesmerising to watch.

The next morning 9 of us took the 7 snocats back to base for another convoy run. This was great fun- four hours of snocat driving.. I was in K14 which is the oldest of the bunch. I spent my time overtaking and getting overtaken by the other ice-shelf users.. taking photos of them and listening to Craig's MP3 Player... great fun (or is it just me that enjoys motorway driving?)

Me snowcat driving. Self portrait.

Just snapping the camera behind my head- not too bad a photo.
I wanna ride that Convoy!!

We would normally have a good old wave off of the ship from one of the nearby creeks, letting off all of the out of date flares and getting thrown abuse from the outgoing winterers.. but alas bad weather prevented this. Before the new Base Commander (BC) could make his first difficult descision of whether to go or not the ship had already left- with a new course set in... KEP, South Georgia.

This brings me on to goodbyes... or rather see ya laters. I've already said goodbye on my blogs to four of the wintereing team (two went on the first plane out, and two on the ship's first call). As I've mentioned before I'm the only one staying from last winter to this next one. It's strange, almost like being at a different base- but it's the same, but it's different, but the same. It's really the people that make (or break) a winter (or rather how you interact with everyone else), so I expect this next winter to be very different and I hopefully will never compare the two.

Anyway, I hope to stay in touch with many of the people I wintered with. You're invited to one of my parents un-christmas BBQ's- but preferably once I'm back in the country.
See ya- it was fun.

Frances
xxx

The Plane Leaves

2006-02-25T00:17:00.000-03:00

The Twin Otters made their final fly-over yesterday as we said goodbye to the two planes that were here. We generally have one plane here for the summer season to get to remote sites like the AGO (Automated Geophysical Observatories) sites and the LPMs (Low powered magnetometers). We also use it for sea-ice recognisance and cargo and pax movements throughout the distant N9 relief. The BAS Airunit are part of the Dronning Maud Land Air Network where all of the bases in the area help each other out when needed. This means that as well as our own aircraft, Halley international airport is open to foreign visitors (who, though didn't stay for long were great to have around). It also meant that our skiiway opened a good month before the BAS planes started coming in. This was a tiring time for the Comms Manager, who was still on winter compliment of one and had to do all of the flight following for the planes in Halley airspace. But it's alright, he had at least two days off during the summer!

As winterers who are trained for off-base survival we are given the chance to 'co-pilot' to most of the sites that the planes visit. This co-piloting is a safety position not a flying one, since if the plane would have to land somewhere that didn't have a base (due to fog at Halley for instance), it is impractical for one person to put up a tent and is against safety regulations to have one person operating a Tilly Lamp (heat and light) or Primus stove (cook). I was lucky enough to get two flights this season (although one was in exchange for working New Years day, and the other involved 6 hours of manual labour at the site, I loved every minute) see past blog entries.
Some people were more, or less lucky. Of the 28 outgoing and incoming wintering compliment one person got 5 flights (though he had had a stressful year as WBC (Winter Base Commander)), 2 got three flights, 4 got two, 13 got one and 8 didn't get a flight at all. Of the 8 that didn't get a flight 4 didn't want a flight (or at least would prefer to let someone else have a go or were not prepared to be stuck out in the field (again!)). Two of those 8 were keen on a flight- but didn't ever have the opportunity.
For myself, the opportunity to leave base for a day or so is amazing and well needed after having the same familiar 4 walls for a year and preparing for another 15 months of it.

The plane's require hourly airobs (meteorological observations specific to aircraft needs), which were provided by the met team. So, now that the planes have left we've been given a bit more time to concentrate on our other equipment/experiments. Also, the base Doctor is the other fire hand on the skiiway (air mech) - incase anything were to go wrong. The job also requires re-fuelling the planes and loading them with drums of fuel. As the base Doctor, Vicky wasn't permitted to leave the base on a co-pilot flight. This arrangement of jobs means that day-in and out the Doctor is at the skiiway- seeing the excited look on the co-pilot's faces - all the while knowing that they themselves can not go on a flight.

We didn't have the same plane the whole time, they were constantly being swapped and changed (for various reasons), so we had the AZ (alpha-zulu), BB (bravo-bravo) and the BC (bravo-charlie). As well as the extra planes, we had visiting pilots and a visiting air mechanic. We also had a visiting chippie from Rothera (Glen), who stayed with us for a while on a fantastic, and unexpected co-pilot flight. In exchange Steve, the outgoing sparky got a once-in-a-lifetime flight to the Elsworth mountains, Rothera, Bluefields, Berkner dome, Fossil Bluff... is there anywhere you didn't go Steve? A few lucky people had the opportunity to visit Neumayer (3 separate visits), and Novo (another German base with a much longer name). The Novo flight required flying (and landing?) at quite a high altitude, so the Air Mechanic has to co-pilot that one.

Ian has been our pilot here for the season putting in a lot of flying time, and general hard work around base. See you next season?
Photo by Ian Potten.

Dave, the air mechanic has been our resident Crazy Canadian. Get some floor space ready in your new condo for a visit from me.

Ness and Me just about to wave the plane off.
Photo by Alex Gough.

One of the planes over the Simpson Platform with the Laws and Piggott Platforms to the right of the photo.
Photo by Alex Gough (guess who fogot her camera that day)

I know that this has been a long blog- but I like planes... and flying

Blimp - Test Flight and Dismantle

2006-02-20T00:28:00.000-03:00

It was a Saturday afternoon. Because of the way we cover the met to include 24hours of meteorlogical and ozone observations I was at work. The wind was low (less than 5knots) and so was a perfect day to test the blimp and it's sondes. The ohter 4 members of the summer met team weren't on shift- but this is a perfect example of our not-so-typical, un-officelike job where if something breaks you fix it. No matter what the time of day. If there's an ob that can only be done in the middle of the night, you do it then. Everyone here is on 24 hour call, and I doubt that there's been a day gone by (at least this year) when I've check that all the data are coming (at some point during the day). It may sound harsh but I wouldn't swap it for the world.

There was an aircraft due in today and because of safty reasons, regulations say that we aren't allowed to fly the blimp on one hour either side of the aircraft's ETA. This meant that we wouldn't do a proper flight all the way up to the boundary layer (400m or so), but we did do a good test of the entire system. It was a little slow to begin with, we had trouble with the regulator from the Helium banks to the tube, and then some of the tubing was blown off- but we got it all sorted. Inside the sonde setup was a little slow aswell, but this will just take practice. Eventually we were at the point where the blimp was full (the tail will never be as rigid as the body Jools) and the sondes were transmitting data... we were ready to fly.

Kirsty with the two sondes. The one on our left is the ozone sonde. This measures local ozone concentrations, the one on the right is a Rusonde and measures general meteorological data like wind speed and direction, temperature, humidity and pressure. Photo by Alex Gough

Taking the Blimp out of the weatherhaven. A bit of a sqeeze, but we managed.
Photo by Alex Gough.

Me and Ness faffing with bits of blimp string.... careful to not let go now...
Photo by Alex Gough.

The blimp in it's resting place with the Laws behind it.
The manual winch is behind Craig on the left and the automatic winch in in the foreground infront of Liz. The BART (where we launch our balloons is on the right of the picture). Photo by Julius Rix.

The blimp had to squeeze out of the weatherhaven but there were many curious hands to help, so there wasn't any problems with that. We put the blimp on it's resting rope before contacting comms to notify them of our flight (however brief). Then we set the automatic winch off, had someone at hand on the manual winch and put it up 10m or so. Then we attached the sondes which were happily wirring away. The flight went well. Very well, there were hardly any hiccoughs and was all good practice for the real data flights this spring. Watch this space... this is ground breaking Global Science in the Antarctic Context... or is it Antarctic Science in the Glabl Context- I always forget which.

The blimp with the sondes attached. Photo by Julius Rix.

In the spring when we're (hopefully) measuring an Ozone Depletion Event we will be doing all of this in the bitter cold for hours on end. We will be measuring windspeed, windirection, pressure, temperature, humidity and ozone concentration.

Blimp Flight - weatherhaven construction

2006-02-17T11:46:00.000-03:00

So here in Antarctica my official job title is: Meteorologist/Physicist/Electronic Engineer. I thought it was about time to include some science and a little about what my job entails.

Though we have a lot of day-to-day work such as; the daily weather-balloon launch, doing three-hourly Met and Ozone observations, collecting air and snow samples, changing air-chemistry filters over, measuring snow-accumulation and generally checking on all logging instruments including the satellite pictures, we also do some more intensive science campaigns.

This year we're trying to collect data from an 'Ozone Depletion Event' (ODE). This is when the formation of sea-ice destroys low level ozone. We hope to fly a small blimp through the ozone-depteted air and measure how thick this layer is. We will attach a normal sonde and an ozone sonde to the blimp line. A sonde is a small, light piece of equipment that measures windspeed, direction, pressure, temperature and humidity. The ozone sonde will measure the amount of ozone. We will fly the blimp during our springtime- September/October, when the sea ice is breaking up and reforming again. But first we have to practice using the equipment.

To save helium and preparation time we will keep the blimp inflated between flights. To keep it from flying away (it gets very windy here) we have a weatherhaven to store it, and the helium that will inflate it. We've borrowed this particular weatherhaven from a site in Berkner where some other BAS scientist were drilling a very long ice-core for studies on past-climate. Fortunately our intrepid Field Guide (GA- don't ask), Simon spent a season there and instructed us in putting it up.

Two banks of 16 helium cylinders each are kept inside this box-on-a-sledge. The box also has light and heat. We will be doing these blimp flights at very cold temperatures so the area surrounding the helium banks needs to be warmed up before they're used. This box will also go in the weatherhaven but for today's exercise we kept the box outside of the tent.

The bottom frame. We've labeled all the bits up with different coloured electrical tape to help us do it in the cold and dark. The whole tent is 14x28foot.

Constructing the frame. The whole operation took 2 hours. The Bart (where we launch weather balloons from) and the Laws (main platform) are in the background.

One end of the weatherhaven has a large door that the blimp should easily fit through. The other end has a small door.

The team outside the finished weatherhaven. Craig, Ness, myself, Simon and Kirsty (Andy had gone in to do a Met ob).

Next... a test flight.

Sunset

2006-02-13T14:40:00.000-03:00

Well tonight seems like it's going to be the night. Our first sunset in 3 months. It signals the end of the summer season- the return of the Ship and a significant reduction in the number of people on base.

The sun's been threatening to set for a few days now, here's a photo from the 9th of Feb, and a couple from the night of the 10th.

It's quite strange for me to live somewhere with such definite seasons. The only other place I've lived with big changes in weather is Colorado, otherwise it's just been coastle places- all a bit mild.

This is great.

Major Incident Scenario

2006-02-05T16:24:00.000-03:00

Yesterday the whole base got involved in a Major Incident Scenario. We 'pretended' that the plane didn't have a good landing on the skiway and there were four pretty serious casualties.

The injured inside the plane.

At around 14:45 local we got a call from the skiway saying that the plane had hit the deck and there was a major incident. Everyone gathered at the Laws' muster point and were delegated jobs. As a first aider mine was to help get the Drewry building (summer accommodation) ready to be used as a hospital. This involved collecting Medical supplies, oxygen and entinox cylinders from the Laws (Main building) and the Piggott platforms (our place of refuse and upper atmospheric science). The Laws was decided not a good place as a hospital since there are a flight of steps up to it- so would be more difficult for stretchers. We cleared the Drewry dining area and collected 4 mattresses from upstairs for the victims (sorry- I mean casualties). Then there was a lot of waiting. The skiway is 2km away from base, clothes need to be put on, skidoos need to be started, people need to bring the correct equipment with them (radios with charged batteries) and be aware of what their jobs are. This all takes time. Fortunately one of the Doctor's duties is to assist the aircraft on every take-off and landing. So Vicky was ready with her grab bag of goodies and she was able to start giving the casualties first aid.

Vicky and many helpers treating a 'pretend' casualty.

Vicky's job in this sort of situation would be (with the help from other first aiders) treat the casualties at the scene and the rest of the base concentrate on getting everyone out of the cold. There were a lot of difficulties in the exercise, and one was getting four people out of the plane and onto stretchers. The two in the back were the easiest (I believe, I wasn't there- I was at the Drewry). But Ian the Pilot proved difficult since the plane is so tiny and sits high off of the snow surface. Fortunately there were many hands to help and they managed fine.

Lots of helpers trying to get the casualties out of the Twin Otter.

One thing to think about is how much easier it's proved to do difficult tasks with lots of people. When the first planes come in in December (October even for foreign visitors) there are only 16 winteres on base to greet it. If an incident as major as this occurred then, the situation would have proved to be much more difficult to handle. As it happened there are 60 people or so on base at the moment and everyone did their bit to help (including photographers and official observers to record the day's events (which reminds me- none of these photographs are mine- Bryns and Simons I believe, but thank you who-ever they are)).

The hospital in full swing

Meanwhile in the hospital things were getting a little busier as the first two casualties arrived - makeup and all. The first was the one I was charged with- Hugh (Halley 6 architect) who played the part of unconscious man well. He had had a full drum of avtur land on his stomach and had major internal injuries. We (pretended) to give him oxygen, IV fluids through one arm and his rectum and eventually set up a blood drive to give him extra blood. It was hairy for him for a while and by the time the Doctor got to the hospital with the other two casualties we were at a loss of what to do next. Fortunately for Hugh the doctor asked us to transport him to the Laws ready for a full scale operation. This involved another stretcher move.

A casualty being taken upstairs to the Law's surgery using one of our many stretchers.

So Hugh was the first casualty. The second was Martin who played a very good loud not-too-serious casualty with a broken arm. I'm not sure what else to be honest, I was a little pre-occupied with Hugh. When the next two came in -Ian the Pilot and Peter (of Halley 6) I was totally uninterested in their injuries, but I seem to recall two broken legs. Once Hugh was brought into the surgery and the kit for the operation brought out the scenario was called off as a successful response. I think we can congratulate ourselves for doing so well- it was all done very professionally and also for giving up an afternoon off. I think we learnt a lot- both as individuals and as a team. All in all- a good day.

Summertime

2006-01-27T23:16:00.000-03:00

So it's been a while since last post- but I have a very good excuse. The dome that holds the receiver dish for the internet was moved last Saturday so that a platform of snow could be bulldozed into it's place so that it wouldn't get buried by the ever increasing snow level. Unfortunately it took a week or so for lovely hard-working Mike to get the connection back. There were a few problems with the system, all of which I probably wouldn't understand so I won't go into- but the bottom line is that it's all up and running again.

At the same time, the email system was upgraded which effected network drives, as was the data server, and so everything was down for a while. I'm surprised the VHF radio wasn't being upgraded at the same time... then we would have been lost. Anyway, excuses aside I've got a few random things to write about.

POST

Post on the pool table.

A flight arrived from Rothera by surprise (Glen the chippie there got a good flight and stay here, while Steve the sparky here got a fantastic flight all over British Antarctica). But still, it brought post... lovely lovely post, thank you Patricia, Parents, Margaret and Lizzy & Mike. For anyone that's interested the address is simple: Frances, Halley, BAS, Falkland Islands, South Atlantic.

WORK

Meanwhile we've been doing some work... as it's the summer we try to do everything that we can and need to do outside, so we've been raising uBaros, fitting new instruments onto masts, calibrating instruments and generally giving the area a bit of a tidy.

Andy up the met mast

Kirsty calibrating the uBaros

The uBaros are short for Mircro Barographs. We have a small array (100m apart) in triangular formation (with one in the middle) so that we can measure small-scale fronts coming in. We also have two Radio Micro Barographs (RuBaros) which are 5km away from base in another larger triangle. This measures the same thing- just on a larger scale. They haven't been raised yet because we haven't had good enough weather for it- next week perhaps.

The Adelie Penguin that's walked to the base this year (has walked a long, long way through very deep soft snow) by the one remaining sodar bucket.

Sodar is sonic radar, it pulses sound into the air and records any reflections that might come back due to temperature or density layers. We did have an array of four sodar buckets to go with the four uBaros, but we're concentrating on one now.

Mirages on the horizon.

Mirages have been quite impressive recently. They're caused by the air at ground level being much colder than the air above. Light then gets reflected and refracted to show a 'superior mirage'. Which means that objects like ice-bergs which are actually over the horizon become visible. We often have quite complex mirages, and it can sometimes mirage the snow between the main base and the CASLab (1km away).

PLAY

Craig and myself enjoying a "healthy" moment watching tv with facepacks and a large glass of concentrated orange juice.

Summer is a busy time. There is a lot to do around the base to get it ready for it's next winter. It may only be -2degC or so outside, but we do drop to -50degC. No cables can be moved in less than -15degC and people get pretty cold doing anything outside, especially if there's any wind. The skidoos tend to be put away early March, though the bulldozer is able to run most of the winter (it doesn't like anything less than -40degC). Speaking of dozers...

Me at 'dozer school'

Dozer school was run one Sunday afternoon. I quickly learnt how to fill in a hole, since I started off accidentally making one. Big machines are great!!!

The hotel 'Windy Caboose'

Simon and I managed to get away for a little less than 24 hours. We stayed at the hotel Windy by where the penguins normally live, and it was a very welcome break.

Simon on the edge of the ice-shelf.

The sea-ice isn't back just yet, and we walked to the old abseiling point we used to use while the Emperor penguins were here. We roped into the point and walked to the edge (we had just seen a massive iceberg calve off the ice-shelf a couple of bays down and were being a little cautious). Just after I took this photo I was getting ready to sit down for some lunch when we heard a lot of ice falling into the sea. So we decided to have lunch somewhere further away from the edge. We actually managed to work out where the noise had come from by seeing some 'bergy bits' floating in the water in a nearby bay, and then was lucky enough to have my video camera out when the next small amount of ice fell in. We couldn't see the event from where we were sitting, but I was able to capture the wave on the otherwise calm sea that it caused. I look forward to scaring my Mother with that when I get home.

So, summer's still ticking along, though the ship should be here in a month or so.

A84 visit

2006-01-06T18:24:00.000-03:00

So another blog with the plane on it... I would apologise but I LOVE IT!!!

I worked new years day (Met never stops), so as repayment I got a brilliant co-piloting flight... it just happened it was the next day so I was really tired.

Me at A84. That's 84 degrees South... I'm getting nearer the Pole!!!

The Camp that we came to relieve. Alex and Rodger have been decommisioning sites all over British Antarctica, just like the A80 site I helped with last month.

Out there there was the best cirrus type 1. Really beautiful, sundogs too.

Relief 05/06

2005-12-30T15:30:00.000-03:00

I know relief is over now, but I thought I'd write a little about it since it's the busiest and perhaps the strangest time on base.

The RSS Ernest Shckleton at N9. Photo taken by me.

It's the time when the RRS (Royal Research Ship) Ernest Shackleton visits the base to deliver the cargo and pax (people) needed for the following summer and winter seasons. The ship normally comes in around Christmas time, purely because that is generally the optimum time for the sea-ice to still be there for the ship to moor up to- but not too much that it has to take a lot of time and fuel to break it's way through. I should mention at this point that it has been known for the ship not to get in at all (because of too much sea-ice). This year there wasn't enough... The ice all broke out a couple of weeks before the ship got here, but we always have a fall-back plan of N9. No-one knows why it's called N9, but this is a place on the Brunt Ice-shelf where the ship can moor up on the sea/shelf ice (ie. a permanent bit of semi-sea-ice that has a gradual track down to the normal sea-ice). 2nd Relief (end of February) last year was at N9 too. The problem with N9 is that it's 50km away, which takes 6 hours to drive by sno-cat. Ideally relief is at Creek 2 (see ice-climbing blog) which is only 12km (or 1 hour) away.

During relief there's a bunch of people at the base end (winterers + management + essential pax like radio ops, chefs and pilots), and a bunch of people at the ship end (field assistance, new winterers + summer pax + all the ship's crew). The objective of relief is to move all of the incoming cargo (fuel, food, steel, equipment, personal boxes, tea, beer, envelopes) off the ship onto base, and move all of the outgoing cargo (waste, old equipment, ex-winterers belongings) from the base to the ship. So everyone goes onto either a nightshift 2000 -> 0800 or a dayshift 0800 -> 2000 and there's a number of different jobs you could be assigned. Because of my job (Meteorologist) I didn't get much of a choice. There always needs to be a MetBabe (as we're known) on standby at the base- for air-observations for our plane or incase a foreign plane comes in, so we need two people to cover the 24 hours. Ness took days and I took nights, (though we have 24 hours of sunlight). Normally I would have an opportunity to help with unloading the sledges etc, but because of the lack of sea-ice a 2nd call for cargo isn't guaranteed. Infact we've all assumed that when the ship gets in in late February it won't pick anything up bar all of the ex-winterers and summerers ready to go home. So I had the newly refurbished Dobson Ozone Spectrophotometer to deal with.

Two Dobson Ozone Spectrophotometers. Out of focas photo... taken by me.

The one on the ceiling- the 103 is outgoing, the one on the trolley - the 073 is incoming. These instruments are passive optical instruments that measures the total amount of ozone in a column straight up through the whole atmosphere. A measurement requires sunlight (either direct or scattered light at the zenith) so only observations using reflections off the moon can be done during the winter months. Measurements are made by comparing the intensities of pairs of wavelengths of ultra violet light. This is the part of the electromagnetic spectra that ozone absorbs. This instrument, and others in Antarctica were the reason we found out about the hole in the ozone layer 20 years or so ago. The 073 has been totally (electronically) refurbished and so doesn't take half of the PSU's and other electric faff that the 103 required. It's also been re-aligned and is generally at the peak of it's performance (all oiled and squeak free). I found the noise reduction from the 103 to the 073 so welcoming that I (Simon helped the tinniest amount!!) replaced the noisy hard-drive that's been driving me made for the last few months with a normal noise free one. So, this new Dobson (as it's called) has to be calibrated and tested to make sure it wasn't damaged in the sail down from Britain. Fortunately we had a few days of totally cloud free skys (not very common), so myself on nights and Ness on days took an observation off each instrument every 30minutes (obs take 5 mins each, so we got pretty bored of this pretty quickly). I also spent two nights running various lamp tests using lights with known, fixed wavelengths to check each instrument. I'm happy to say that the handover went well- and I look forward to reading the next handover report on someone's weblog in 15 years time.

So relief this year (for everyone else anyway) was mainly about sno-cat driving. We had 3 cats going from here to the half-way mast (not really half-way) with two people in each, and then another three going from the ship to the mast. That's not including the slightly older cats and more experienced drivers on the sea-ice taking the sledges up onto the ice-shelf. A lot of people put in some very boring driving hours for 8 days. Having said that I'm going to volunteer for that job next relief.

The Sno-cat convoy taken from the air... who by? not me.

Christmas was during relief again this year. It was very much uncelebrated by most- I had a few presents to open that had very nicely timed come in from the ship that day (thankyou), and we all sat down for Christmas dinner - even though it was at 8am... but still. Christmas is great.

Christmas dinner 2005. Taken by Simon.

Flying to A80

2005-12-20T15:13:00.000-03:00

On Saturday I got to go flying!!!

DJ Max, Simon and of course Ian the pilot and I flew 3 hours to the AGO (Automated Geophysical Observertory) site at A80 (it's at 80degress and 57minutes South). Our job there was to decomision the hut that had previously held all of the Geophysical loggeres for the instruments around the caboose.

The best thing about going there was that I got to co-pilot. In Antarctica we always fly with a co-pilot (whether we've got any flying experience or not). The co-pilot is there incase we have to over-night in the field so there would be two people to put up a tent and such. The best thing about co-piloting is that you get the best view.

Photo of me in the co-pilot seat with the Shackleton mountains in the background... Photo by the Pilot Ian Potten...

So, we were there to do a job. That is- to decomission a caboose (hut) that's been holding scientific equipment, which is now unfunded... and here we leave only footprints. Though the question of how much polution was caused by the two flights needed to carry all the waste back isn't a factor that the Antarctic Treaty Board (or whatever they're called) thinks about.

The Caboose before we emptied it and tore it appart bit by bit.

During decomisioning. The caboose was designed especially to fit into an aircraft. The walls all came off in sections.

The job done. Well we ended with piles of waste and a big hole. Only one plane though, so it'll take a few trips to take it all back.

The Shackleton Mountains taken from the back of the plane on the way back... perfect light... beautiful!!!

So, after 3 hours flying there, 6 hours hard labour and then 3 hours on the plane back I was quite happy to sit down to a saved plate of Christmas dinner. Halley's great.

Getting Warmer!!!

2005-12-16T10:16:00.000-03:00

Summer is well and truely on it's way. It's been so hot that we've been recorded temperatures as high as + 1 deg C!!! The first BAS plane got in on Monday the 5th of December, and we all greeted the new FIDS with great big smiles.

Below: The Twin Otter taxi-ing from the ski-way.

Above: The passengers greet the base members for the first time in 10 months.

The best thing about this plane coming in was that it brought fresh food and post. It was great receiving the small packages and letters I got, Ta very much. (Thank you Lizzy and Mike for the wedding invitation, but I don't think I could make it).

As for the fresh food- I think it was Rothera's left-overs, though we can't complain.... there's nothing like a fresh crunchy apple... yum.

The next day another plane came in (the same type) with Ian the Pilot (who will be with us all season), and Simon who's next year's wintering GA. He's just done a winter at Rothera and, I'm happy to say, is very enthusiastic about next winter (he's also attempting to teach me how to play Bridge).

But alas with such happiness as news from the outside world and new faces to talk to, it meant that it was time for Gareth (the outgoing wintering Vehicle Mechanic) and Jamie (the outgoing wintering Plumber) had to leave on one of the planes. It was a horribly mank day when they left, but Gareth looked pretty pleased (he's been here since January 2004- and wasn't expecting to do last winter).

Below: Gareth in the Happy Sledge... looking happy. And surprisingly not driving for a change.

Above: Jim Co-piloting his flight home via Sky Blue, Fossil Bluff and Rothera. Then taking the Dash-7 to the Falklands and then a RAF flight to the UK via the Ascension Islands).

Last week we had a blow (windspeeds up from 20knots blow the settled snow up and about so you can't see very much). This combination of high windspeeds and relatively wam weather meant that all of the sea ice surrounding our ice-shelf as been blown away. It's good and bad news all round (mainly bad).

1: It means that the ship can't moor nearby, so we have to do a relief from N9 (more than 6 hours of snowcat driving each way).

2: No more ice-climbing this season.

3: All this year's chicks will have died.

Jeff was able to take some photos of some Penguins at Windy Bay (on his way back from A84 (a remote site at 84degrees South))- just think... a few weeks ago Sledge Geriatric were walking about on the sea-ice... we watched the chicks grow up from eggs, and now they'll all be dead.

Below : A few adults resting in what is left of the coast.

Above: A pack of Emperors doing their best to stay out of the seal infested water. Photo by Jeff Cohen from a moving aircraft

So, I'm getting busier by the day. There's heaps of things I want to get done and dusted before the ship gets here (both personal stuff, like pack a box of things to go home, move pit-rooms for the summer, and finish off my winter projects) and for work (de-commission MAWSON (done), and get the rest of the out-going cargo ready for the ship).

I hope to write more, but now you know my excuses.... keep emailing.

Frances

Ice Climbing

2005-12-04T08:34:00.000-03:00

IceClimbing4
Originally uploaded by BrynJ.

Jamie, Simon, Bryn and I were taken out for a suberb day of ice climbing by Ian (our qualified field guide).

We drove an hour in a snowcat to get to creek 2 caboose only to find that the wind was stronger there than back at base. The wind was above 10 knots and coming from the East so there was risk of the sea ice being pushed out by the wind. This means we weren't alowed on the sea-ice, so we couldn't wander about and have a look inside ice-caves and visit the penguins... but I've seen penguins before, and that's not what we were here to do. I was interested in ice-climbing and we could still legally do this, as long as we were always tied onto a rope.

So, 100foot cliffs, two ice axes a set of crampons and a rope attatched so you can be b-layed from the top (just in case- ice is slippery!!). We had two ropes set up (held by a series of snowstakes wedged into the snow at the top). One rope was for abseiling down on, and one was for ice-climbing up. That's how Bryn was able to get this awsome photo of me. Ta.

The climb was a bit of an effort, I didn't have much confidence in my crampons holding, but I managed it... and am eager to do it again, another day.
(L) Simon making it look easy.

(R) Me at the bottom, the sun's been shinning on the cliffs to improve their iceness. In the background is a pile of snow that used to be on that slumping ice-cliff.

(Top Right) Me making it look difficult.... great fun!

Melt Tank Cleaning

2005-11-30T09:46:00.000-03:00

Petra Looking exhausted.

Jamie hoovering up the rest of the slime.

Almost Clean
Originally uploaded by Snow_girl.

With the summer building (Drewry) warm and ready for the summer it's time for our anual meltank clean.

The Meltank is a big metal cylinder 30m below the snow surface where all of our water is kept. We fill it daily with snow (which then melts- hence the name). My guesstimate is that the meltank is 2m in diameter and 3m tall (but I'm not good at guessing that sort of thing)... if it were only half full and there were some seats it would make a really good hot tub for 12 or so people.

Jamie is the plumber (who'll be leaving us shortly) and it's his job. Simon, Petra and I volunteered to help clean it... I honestly had no idea there would be so much sludge at the bottom, on the walls and in all the nooks and cranies. But I can happily say that it's much cleaner now.

Jim's been at this job for a few days now. Two days of pumping water out and transporting it to the Drewry meltank, a morning of cleaning, and then spent a long afternoon/eveing/night transporting the water from the Drewry back into our meltank. This is a job and a half, and I won't know the progress till I go to lunch.

See you can't just fill it with snow and expect it to melt (you would have thought). That would take much too long... you need to add snow to very warm water to melt it, and as you add more snow it lowers the temperature of the water, so it has to be a very slow process. The problem here is that we need the water so it can be pumped into the day tank on the main platform (it's all a big balancing act). I can't wait to have a shower again!!

End of the Winter

2005-11-27T12:29:00.000-03:00

The winter is almost over, and the summer is very nearly here .... and I'm excited.

Site work is happening almost every day now. Last week I gave a hand in clearing snow from on, in and around the sledges, moved the container line forward (much easier in the light and with a skidoo handy) and moving some computers from their store on the warm CASLab to the Drewry (summer accommodation).

Jamie, the plumber's spent the last week or more getting the Drewry building warm, plumbed in and lit for the coming summer season. The last couple of days he's being doing a teadiously boring job of moving water from our melt tank to theirs to fill it up, and so we do our anual melt-tank clean. So that'll be fun!!!

The Helium Move.

We've also got a lot of work going on at the Simpson (the Met Platform). We're trying to get the platform tidy and sorted before the influx of new equipment and spares comes in at Christmas. We're also trying to pack and get rid of everything we can to send off on the ship on first call. This includes MAWSON, the old weather station system. So come the end of November I'll turn it off, then take all the equipment off the mast and Stevenson screen and bring it all in and pack it all away (along with all it's spares). I will be very happy when that's all done. We've spent the last year running two systems at once (to check the new one's working and all the data are ok), and though Milos has had it's hiccups it's been a pretty smooth change-over. Which brings me to thinking about the other change-over operations I've got going over the summer. The main one is the Dobson Spectrophotometer (which measures the ozone level). I think that will be a hectic week checking that the new and improved one hasn't been damaged during the voyage south, and giving similar readings to the old one. We've also got a software change on the weather balloon pc, which will hopefully go smoothly.

So, the place is busy. The first BAS plane is due in less than a week (along with post and fresh food). Like I said, all very exciting.