Travellin’ South

Happy New Year!

Righto, sorry it’s been another long stretch between posts but spare time has been extremely limited over the last couple of weeks!

The arrival of the JCR triggered four days of heavy activity to unload all of our supplies from the ship. Quite unbelievable amounts of cargo was being driven up from the wharf and dropped off at various locations around base for us to open, check, and unload into the buildings. Everyone on base gets involved in relief, human chains were being formed to spirit our food supplies away into the stores and a massive effort was put in by all to get the JCR turned around and on her way on Christmas Eve morning.

For me, relief was divided into shifts in the tower, short periods of sleep and unpacking a seemingly endless stream of cargo boxes arriving at the back door. Highlights included  finding the stationary box (working biros were becoming hard to find…) and my personal kit arriving intact (Riet says he only dropped the guitars off the telehandler three times).

Although Christmas Day was a bit of a non-event for a good portion of the base (we still had flying operations throughout the week so plenty of people were working) an excellent Christmas dinner was enjoyed and Boxing Day brought a break from the office in the form of a last-minute co-pilot flight for me out to the Larsen Ice Shelf…

One of our field parties, Sledge Hotel (each field party is referred to as a “Sledge” and then a letter from the phonetic alphabet, in this case Hotel), had completed their geology work and we flew out on a dingle day to pick them up off the ice. After the constant activity of the past couple of weeks it was good to strap in, sit back and soak up the beautiful view as we flew over the peninsula to Sledge Hotel’s camp on the edge of the ice shelf.

Despite the good weather, it looked a little iffy as we approached due to a large amount of low cloud which could have prevented a landing. As we passed over the final hills before the camp we saw the clear sky that Sledge Hotel’s last weather report had indicated, spotted the camp on the ice below and turned in to land on the skiway the field party had marked out for us. See if you can spot the field party on the photo above…!

Once on the ground we had a quick chat with Teal and James who’d been out on the Larsen for about a month and then quickly got about loading their gear so we could turn the aircraft around for a second run in time to pick up the final load before the weather closed in.

Time for an introduction to the gentle art of loading a skidoo onto a Twin Otter… attach two rail ramps to the bottom of the open cargo door, someone rides the skidoo as far as it will go into the aircraft and then a lot of pushing and pulling ensues to get it snugly inside. Skidoo in, pack the rest of the gear around it, strap it all down securely and we’re on our way back to base.

What little spare time there has been lately was mainly put into band practice to get us ready for the New Year party

This season Rothera is blessed with an excellent complement of musicians amongst the station staff! We put on about a dozen songs for the party including old stuff and new, Michael Jackson, Cardigans, Arctic Monkeys, other modern things I’d never heard of and we even managed to squeeze in a little bit of Local Hero for a quieter moment. The tech services guys pulled out all the stops to convert the garage into the party venue with stage, lighting and PA system and on the night it all went down a storm for a cracking New Year party…

…best of all, we got a day off next day!

The JCR is here…!

Not a long post this one, just a quick note to mention that the James Clark Ross arrived at Rothera yesterday morning and since then it’s been all hands to unload the ship. Flying operations are still going on so it’s a pretty frantic time here on base. We hope to have the ship cargo dealt with by Wednesday and the ship should be on her way.

Because we’re so busy here on station there’s not much of a Christmas thing happening but we should settle down for Christmas dinner around 5pm on Thursday before we continue working on Friday morning. It didn’t feel like xmas at all until the ship pitched up but I’ve now got a massive pile of post (thank you very much!!) and two of my three personal boxes have appeared so that’s making me feel much more seasonal…!

Right, it’s been a long hard day so I have to hit the sack now before I slump forward onto the keyboard!

Great finish to a long week…

After a really hard week of early starts and late nights working and virtually zero free time, Saturday was a nice reminder that life is all good really.

No shifts for me in the daytime so a relatively leisurely start (i.e. not 6:30am!), did a few jobs around the office and then a nice afternoon’s skiing on the ramp. With a few tips from Crispin the skiing was coming along quite well and then rounded off nicely with a BBQ in the evening. There was a pirate theme for fancy dress but not many takers initially, probably caught out by the earlier-than-usual kick off time.

The early BBQ worked out nicely as our Chilean Air Force friends (who have been staying at Rothera prior to flying to the Fleming Glacier) decided to take advantage of some good weather and go flying. That put me in the tower for the evening but not a bad thing - the vantage point afforded me an excellent view of their Twin Otter fly-by on their return to Rothera!

The excitement didn’t stop there… our rescue boat that was out on the water was surrounded by a group of humpback whales about 50m off the wharf. After checking out the boat for 20 minutes they headed off out into Ryder Bay and, once the boat was safely in, I could leave the tower and head down to the wharf to see if I could get a better photo i.e. one where the whales are more than 5 pixels wide…

Jim (dressed as a pirate) and Birgit were packing the boat away and we had a nice chat about the whales. The low sun was looking particularly good so I hung around for a while but the whales didn’t reappear. No problem, there’s always plenty of wildlife around at the moment so I spent a bit of time taking pictures of the birds flying past and a couple of sleepy penguins resting nearby.

So, a cracking day! Despite working a late night, a day like that was a nice reminder of why it’s good to be down here in such a special place.

The next week looks as though it will continue to be busy with the added pressure of the impending arrival of the JCR. Lots of preparations are going on around base so that we’re ready to quickly unload this season’s supplies from the ship and then load the waste for transport back out of Antarctica. Oh yeah, and the ship brings me my stuff too!

Busy busy busy…

First of all, thanks to everyone who takes the time to post comments on the blog, I really enjoy reading them and it’s great to hear from you all. It’s nice being able to quickly scan down the comments during any quiet moments I get… and it’s been a busy couple of weeks since my last post! Hope you’re all getting geared up for Christmas and enjoying lots of festive cheer…

Soon after the much anticipated arrival of our Twin Otter aircraft we were beset by unusually difficult weather for this time of year, more like winter conditions I’m told. Very frustrating to have the aircraft arrive and then not be able to fly them! However, the last week or so has seen brief periods of good weather, enough for us to start sending aircraft out into the field whenever the forecaster tells us we have a chance. One of the jobs of the comms team is to take care of all communication with the aircraft flying in and out of Rothera, both the local traffic on VHF radio and further afield by HF radio. We split our “flight following” duties over shifts with a rota but when the operation starts running overnight (it’s daylight all the time now!) we have to be a bit more flexible, extend our shifts and cover each other when required. For me, that means lots of work between shifts in the tower and all of the other comms manager duties!

One of the perks of the job in the comms team is the chance for an early flight in a Twin Otter to help familiarise you with how the pilots operate and thus help you picture what’s going on at the other end of the radio when you’re talking with them. Last week my name was called at short notice and 40 minutes later I was suited up and sitting in the right-hand seat taxiing down the runway!

Just like when we flew in on the Dash-7, shortly after take off the base begins to look very small indeed nestled amongst the surrounding mountains! My flight was a relatively quick run (about 1 hour flying) down to a nearby site we use as a fuel depot but it was covered in enough cloud to prevent landing so I was denied my chance to shovel snow and push drums of fuel… shame, but it did make a nice change to see the white fluffy tops of clouds rather than the grey underside! Above is a nice pic of some textbook lenticular clouds forming above mountains on the way back to base. As everything is so dependent on the weather here I’m quickly developing an interest in meteorology and maybe I’ll turn into a cloud spotter or something.

I haven’t had much time to relax over the last couple of weeks but I have managed to get out a little bit. Crispin (our summer radio operator and experienced polar hero) introduced me to the delights of Nordic skiing for a quick tour around the Point one evening. I can’t say the weather was great but the Nordics are a much better way to get around than stumbling through knee-deep snow. Some interest from our Adelie friends too although they seem to have the whole moving-across-snow thing down and didn’t need any tips. Penguin sightings are pretty much a daily occurrence now and a trip round the Point is almost certain to deliver. I did see a pair of Chinstrap penguins yesterday from the tower but didn’t get a photo. We’ve also seen a group of Orcas out in Ryder Bay to the south of the station - not a bad view from the office window!

OK, sorry it’s been a while since the last post, it does take a little bit of time to put one together so bear with me! Once again, I really enjoy reading the comments you post back to me and I hope everyone back home is having a nice time in the run up to the Christmas holidays!

Heavy weather for summer…

For most of this week we’ve been enjoying heavy snow. Quite unusual at this time of year, usually it’s melted off by now and the base is more like a rock quarry, this is more like typical winter conditions. I took a very quick video of the snow that was keeping our Basler visitors on the ground, pretty much the prevailing weather conditions all week. Since then the snow hasn’t eased and the runway was fully covered with snow for a while. Also, here is a picture of me with a light smattering of snow after walking across the yard to get to lunch. The novelty of being in snow all the time still hasn’t worn off and I expect it won’t for a good while yet. I just wish the weather would improve enough for me to get out for a bit of a ski…

It’s actually not entirely impossible to make it down here without signing 2 years of your life away to BAS - on Thursday we had a brief visit from the tourist ship Kapitan Khlebnikov. Most of the tourist ships visiting the Antarctic only do a brief visit to the tip of the Peninsular but the Kapitan Khlebnikov is a Russian icebreaker that was originally  designed to keep the North Siberian shipping lanes open and they are currently doing a half circumnavigation of the continent from Ushuaia westwards to New Zealand. The ship appeared like a ghost out of the gloom on Thursday morning, proceeded to offload about 100 tourists by zodiac for a quick tour of the station and I was lucky enough to get on board for a tour of their ship and a very nice cup of tea. An impressive ship and a very serious Russian crew to match!

Now, sorry it’s been a while, I have answers to the questions put forward by Class 4 - here you go:

1.  What are your meals like because you won’t have any shops? …We have a large supply of food stored on base and the food is very much like you would find in a high quality canteen in the UK. Our two chefs are very imaginative, make sure nothing goes to waste and the base is well fed, generally on 5 meals a day - that’s why we need to get outside and exercise!

2. Is the base comfortable? …The base is quite comfortable. All of the indoor area are heated, we have a well-stocked library (including DVDs and videos), a coffee area, a lounge with a nice view over the water, a gym and I’ve even heard rumours of a sauna.

3. What did you find to wear on Halloween? …At short notice I kept it simple - a blood-stained apron, baseball bat and a mad wig. You shouldn’t overcomplicate these things.

4.  How many different types of penguins have you seen so far? …So far I have only seen two Adelie penguins I’m afraid. Adelies are the most common type around here but I am assured there will be many more to come!

5.  How many layers of clothes do you have to wear to go out side? …If it’s just a short walk between buildings, a coat, hat and gloves is sufficient. For longer periods spent outside we might put on a few layers of outdoors clothing, depending how active we’re going to be or possibly a set of insulated overalls over our indoors clothes which is good for working. When we go out on boats we wear insulated boat suits (which are like dry suits, see the picture above) over our clothes just in case we were to fall out of a boat into the cold water.

6. Have you climbed any mountains? …For the field training Matt and I did, we had a great couple of days out in the local hills up from the station, very enjoyable. Mountains are excellent places to be. Since then I haven’t had a chance to get out but plenty of people have been out climbing while the weather was good, climbing is very popular here at Rothera!

7.  Do you play any sports on the snow? …It’s good to be out in the hills in the snow on foot but I am trying to learn to ski while I’m here. So far I’m a complete beginner but there will be plenty of time to practice. Other people on base snowboard and a variety of games are played at the Winter Olympics later in the year.

8.  How do you get through snow blocked doors? …The best way is to try and find another door.

9.  What are your work mates like? …Everyone on station is very friendly. We have all chosen to come down here and understand the pressures of being far away from home so we look after each other and help each other out when we can. It’s a very broad mix of people on base with very different jobs so we all enjoy learning about what the others are doing.

10.  Are you enjoying yourself?  We hope so! …Yes, very much so! There’s a lot to do on station, both in terms of interesting work and excellent recreational activities. Even when the weather is bad it is nice to relax indoors and read a book, looking out at the icebergs.

11. How does Dr Matt deal with illness and injuries out there - is it different to our Doctors? (from Matt) …In short, I work just like a doctor works back home. Luckily everyone here is fit and well so I don’t get called very often. We don’t let people who are likely to get sick put themselves at risk by coming down here. But when people do feel sick or have an injury, they come to see me and I try to sort it out. I have lots of good equipment including X-ray machines, anaesthetics machines and all sorts of drugs to help people. I have experienced consultants just a phonecall away and I have had extensive training in Plymouth for this job I so should be prepared for anything!  (thanks Matt!)

OK, sorry it’s taken so long to answer these, it’s been a very busy week! I managed to get a morning off today and treated myself with a walk around Rothera Point (”the Point” as it is known locally), which is the outcrop off the island that our base is built on. It’s been snowing constantly for a week and the snow is waist deep in some places. On my way round I came across these four Adelie penguins taking an interest in a seal that was sleeping on the beach. Apparently someone saw a group of Chinstrap penguins the other day which is very rare so I will be keeping an eye out for those…!

Another penguin visitor…

Despite the long days working in the tower, another penguin photo opportunity presented itself yesterday and I was straight out with my trusty telephoto lens! This friendly Adelie was spotted waddling around the middle of the base.

The trick with penguins, apparently, is to stay still, get low on the ground and wait for them to come to you… well, that seems to work as the little guy walked right up to me to about 1 metre, seemed quite interested, made a couple of strange noises and then wandered off to explore the rest of the base. He actually got so close I had to switch to macro mode on the lens! So, uh, not much need for that telephoto lens then huh, must pop the wide angle back on…

As predicted by our forecaster, the weather here has turned rough today (and probably for the rest of the week) with gale force winds and horizontal snow showers making it slightly difficult to walk between buildings but it all adds to the flavour and it wouldn’t be the place it is if it was sunny every day!

First penguin sighting today…

As promised, my first penguin photo, as soon as I could possibly post it…!

This Adelie penguin popped up from a slot in the sea-ice earlier today while I was in the tower and I was able to bag a few rather unimpressive shots with my longest zoom lens I happened to have beside me.

He very quickly waddled around, had a look at the nearby seal, went off behind a building and then disappeared back into the water. Very quick, sorry it’s not a great shot but I’m sure there’ll be plenty more opportunities!

Will write more when I get a chance…

Comments and stuff…

Thanks to all for the messages you’ve been leaving on the blog! In case anyone thought I was being rude and ignoring you lot, I’ve now installed a “reply to…” plugin that allows me to, uh, reply to comments inline on the blog and makes it a lot easier to answer stuff! I don’t know if you get any RSS or e-mail notification that I’ve replied though? Maybe someone can let me know…?  Cheers!

Because I believe no blog post should be without a picture, here’s a pleasant shot of a nice sunset last week, as seen from the wharf. The sun is still setting here at the moment although not for very long. It’s pretty much light the whole time here this time of year - although the sun is setting it only gets a little dim after midnight. Not long until we have 24 hour sunshine I think… 

A busy first week in the snow…

It’s been a massive first week for me down at Rothera! Let’s see if I can remember all that’s gone on…?

After arriving on base last Friday, we had the Halloween party on Saturday night (Halloween was delayed for a day down here so that us new arrivals could join in and have a little time to dig something out of the fancy dress cupboard!) and subsequent recovery on Sunday plus a little touring around base to find where the various IT and communication systems are. To the right you see Ian demonstrating what can be found behind various doors once the snow level builds up!

Before anyone is allowed out and about on their own from base they need to complete certain levels of field training to ensure their safety. The basic principles of crevasse rescue were introduced on the field course back in the UK but, once you’ve arrived down south, it’s time to practice them for real! As two new winterers, Matt (the new doctor) and I were paired up and assigned to be taken out by Ferg and Paul, two of the Field GAs (Field General Assistants, the title given to the mountain guides we have to take scientists out into the wilds of Antarctica and generally train and look after us when a higher level of mountain skills are required).

Because the doctor may be called upon to assist in the mountains at short notice, the GAs felt they should take the opportunity to pack in a little extra training and get Matt’s confidence up to a high level so we were set up for a 3 day course. After a day practicing rope techniques, getting kitted out and learning various manoeuvres on the snow slope at East Beach, Tuesday saw us heading out in glorious weather for a couple of days in the mountains and a night’s camp. Days of such fantastic weather are generally referred to here as “dingle days”… the photo above is a stitched panorama shot straight out of my compact camera on Tuesday morning - yes, it really is like that down here!!

First up was a tour of one of the known local crevasses, just up the hill from the base, so that we got a better idea of how extensive these are and how difficult they can be to spot from above. We abseiled through the hole in the snow and went down into the strange blue ice cave below! The inside of the crevasse is difficult to describe but, basically, touring through it was live going caving in a giant ice palace, if you can imagine such a thing. A good chance to practice walking on sloping ice with crampons and a few tricky little holes to squeeze through made for good entertainment…!

After climbing out of the crevasse we travelled further up the glacier to a local area known as Stork Bowl - a bowl of snow beneath the Stork range, funnily enough. From here, Matt and I each took a turn jumping over the corniced edge so that the other could practice what to do when your partner on the rope falls into a slot. Not easy but an excellent way to learn the technique.

All this made for a pretty long day out on the snow but the hard work wasn’t over yet. Back off the mountain and onto the flat we made camp and pitched the traditional pyramid tent that BAS still use for camping in Antarctica. This might look like an uncomfortable way to spend the night but, although the tent looks like it came back from Scott’s era, the pyramid tent design is still super strong and warms up nicely once you’ve lit up a Tilley lamp inside.

The weather wasn’t quite so outstanding on Wednesday so we took a lie-in and waited for the cloud to lift before doing a nice bit of roped-up winter walking over Stork Ridge for the day. Hard work but a great mountain day and excellent training in moving as a roped pair and use of axes and crampons over different types of snow, ice and mixed rocky ground.

Wednesday evening saw us safely back on base for a well earned dinner and a couple of beers. Thursday and Friday this week were busy work days for me (yes, I am actually here to work!). The Dash-7 was flying again between Punta Arenas and back to Rothera so a good opportunity for me to get up to speed on the flight communications and I spent most of my time in the tower. In the evenings some boat trips were organised to take people out around the icebergs and local islands. Unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to hop on one of these as I was up in the tower providing ‘ops cover’ which basically means logging regular position reports from the boats for safety. Not a problem though, the base is relatively quiet at the moment so it’s a good time for me to get to grips with my job one step at a time before the Twin Otters arrive and everything goes mad!

To finish off, today (Saturday) I’ve had a much needed day off and basically I’ve just been fairly lazy, got up late, wrote this blog post, gazed out at the icebergs and joined Crispin’s Beginner’s Ski School this afternoon for my first few slides down the ramp beside the runway.

We made it!

As you can probably gather from the post title, the winds died down enough for us to escape Punta Arenas, hop across the Drake Passage and on down to Rothera!

The flight down was pretty uneventful, started off at a very windy Punta Arenas airport, loaded our bags onto the Dash-7 and away we went (so windy the take off was nearly vertical!). Nothing much to see on the flight down due to pretty much total cloud cover but I won the rock/paper/scissors fight for the jump seat on landing and got to sit in the cockpit on the way in… no amazing pic I’m afraid because I was too busy filming it on Matt’s camcorder (I’ll try and get that posted once we’ve had some time to edit it and shrink the size down a bit).

Seeing the base for real from the air totally shattered any illusions I’d built up in my head from previously seeing pictures. I think my brain actually stopped when I spotted the runway amongst the neighbouring mountains and islands! The scale of everything around the base is immense and the base looks so small in comparison.

Since landing all of us new arrivals have  been doing various bits of familiarisation around the station, vehicle training on the gators and skidoos, walking around the point to see the local scenery and shadowing Ian, the outgoing Comms Manager, so I can start getting to grips with my job. One thing’s for sure, I’m not going to be short of any work!

Sorry this can only be a quick post for now as it’s late and I need to hit the sack before heading off base tomorrow to complete our initial field training - this will  basically be running through the crevasse travel and rescue techniques and campcraft that were introduced on the Derbyshire field course for real up on the glacier. Once this is done I’ll be allowed out and about on my own. For now you’ll just have to sit tight and have a look at some pics I’ve taken around the base (forgive the kink in the runway on the stitched panorama from the skidoo but I just haven’t had any time to get clever with photos yet!)…