Life on the Shelf………

What does this mean…………………

A few things:

It’s very cold!

It’s time to have a BBQ!

And for the really brave a ‘naked’ run around the Laws Platform……………. This particular tradition is also done on mid-winters day so I’m thinking it can wait until then, no need to do that twice!!!!

Having a BBQ at -50 is interesting to say the least. You have to eat your food very quickly but it’s pretty hard when you’ve got the most enormous gloves on! Beer has to be drunk through straws otherwise your lips and the beer can become one but unless you drink it very quickly it soon becomes a slush puppy and then solid beer ice. Even a cup of tea is not safe in these cold temperatures……………..

Ags demonstrating water freezing as it’s thrown

BBQ

Tea anyone………….

So, it’s Easter weekend and we’ve got a few days off work. I’m hoping that the wind will pick up and the temperature increases a little bit so that I can get my kite out and try a bit of kite skiing. So far I’ve managed to get my kite out a couple of times but not with skis attached to my feet which was a good thing as the last time the wind was around 9 knots when I went out but picked up to 14 and carted me off to the perimeter, luckily Niv was with me and came and rescued me with a skidoo!!! Who knows where I would have ended up if I’d had skis on!!!

It’s great fun and I can’t wait to start doing it properly. Failing that we’ll have to try and do some more skijoring which is great fun too. Basically it’s like water skiing but on snow and using a skidoo rather than a speed boat!!!

My first attempt at flying my kite……………….

and my first attempt at skijoring………….

So, when I started writing this it was a week ago………… Easter has now been and gone!!!

Easter was great, we had 3 days of really good clear weather so Niv, Susanna and myself decided to get out and do a couple of ski’s off base. We have a 3km and 4km marker which basically consist of 3 barrels and 4 barrels on top of each other and mark that distance from base. We have a perimeter around base which we have to stay within. It is roughly 0.5km out from base and has a circumference of about 5km. Generally this would be our skiing route but with the extra time off and the dark days and nights approaching it was an ideal time to get a few last long skis in.

Niv and I at the 4km marker

4km marker, a little bit buried, only 3 barrels showing. We have to raise these to make sure they remain visible. We do a lot of digging of snow down here!!!!

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Well, this week sees me doing my first week of nights which gives me the perfect opportunity to get my blog up to date.

A month since my last update is pretty poor, I really do promise to try and keep it better updated, I wonder how many times I’ve said that now!!!!!

Anyway………….. Winter Trips

Sunday 22nd February, the day the Ernest Shackleton left Halley taking the old winterers and summer team with it, leaving just 11 of us on base. This marked the start of our 8 month winter and also the start of our first set of winter trips.

Traditionally this set of trips goes out to the Hinge Zone (weather permitting) which is about a 3hr skidoo drive from base. The Hinge Zone is where the continent meets the ice shelf and due to the pressure and stresses and strains it has become a series of chasms, crevasses and small peaks (we like to call mountains!!!).

I went on my trip with Niv our Field Assistant who keeps us safe and attempts to prevent us from falling down crevasses and Robbie our resident sparkie. We were incredibly lucky with the weather and had 5 beautiful sunny days but very chilly evenings. Still we weren’t complaining, the other trips that went out found themselves confined to their tents for much of their trips due to low cloud creating bad contrast and therefore not being able to see the ground in front of them, pretty tricky in an area full of crevasses!!

The first day of our trip started with getting everything packed up onto the wooden Nansen sledges that we would then pull behind our skidoos, having a last (proper) meal (bacon sarnies!!), donning our skidoo suits which make it all but impossible to do anything but complain about how un-comfy they are and then heading out into the vast, flat white landscape that is the Brunt Ice Shelf.

Me in my beloved skidoo suit (we developed a love/hate relationship!!!).

The Gatekeeper. This point marks the gateway to the Hinge Zone. You can’t see well from this picture but all our skidoos and sledges are linked together. The theory being that if one goes into a crevasse the others will take the weight and stop it disappearing for good and pulling everyone else in with it!!!

We arrived at our camp site after about 3hrs of driving with only a few stops to pick up bits that had fallen off sledges and untangle ropes that we’d driven over!! Driving a skidoo linked to a sledge to a skidoo to another sledge etc etc is not as difficult as it might sound but you do have to concentrate. Generally looking at the person driving in front of you is a good idea otherwise when you realise they’ve stopped it’s all too late and you’ve already driven over your rope and got it twisted around your skis and end up having to do some funky manoeuvres to get in untangled!

Another good thing to do is when you are moving off check that the person behind you is ready. Niv always drove the front skidoo, me in the middle and Robbie at the back. Niv would give a thumbs up signal to both of us to check we were all ready and we’d both make some sort of signal back to say yeah we were. The problem is given the distance between Niv and Robbie it turns out it wasn’t always clear what signal Robbie was giving or even if he was on his skidoo at all as we found out when Niv and I drove off dragging Robbie’s skidoo behind us while Robbie was left running after it!!!!

Anyway, once at our chosen spot it was time to set up camp, this involves putting up our 3 man pyramid tent, setting up our beds which is no mean feat (wooden board, roll mat, thermarest, sheepskin rug, fleece liner thingy, biggest Rab down sleeping bag you’ve ever seen in your life inside a protective outer covering, hmm fiddly to say the least and getting into it is another story but suffice to say once inside it’s nice and snug!), setting up the HF radio (so we can contact base each evening to say all is well) and putting up the pee tent (toilet!!) and voila, home sweet home…………………

Comfy in my bed!

On our second day we went out to Stoney Berg, so named because it lays claim to the only stones on the Brunt Ice Shelf. We had a good amble around and climbed up the ridge to the top of the Berg. On the other side of the Berg we found a huge gulley which we abseiled into and had a wander around and then climbed back out of.

Stoney Berg from the front. We walked up from the far right.

Looking at Stoney Berg ridge. You can just make our skidoos out in the distance.

Stoney Berg Ridge.

Stoney Berg Stones!!!!

Walking around the Hinge Zone is much like driving around, we have to be roped up to each other. Again, the theory being if one of us falls down a crevasse the person on the other end of the rope can stop your fall, build an anchor and if necessary get you out if you can’t climb out yourself. We had plenty of training on this before going on our trip, luckily though we didn’t need to use any of these newly learnt skills. There were plenty of crevasses around but Niv had a canny way of finding them before they found us much to my relief as it turns out I’m much more of a scardy cat than I thought I would be when it comes to walking over crevasse ridden areas!!! My thinking on this is that maybe falling down a crevasse would be the best way to overcome my fear, I’ll let you know when I find out!!

Me and Robbie roped up at the bottom of Stoney Berg where we’d just abseiled in.

We found a smallish crevasse on our 3rd day which Niv opened up and set up an anchor so we could abseil down into it and have a look around.

This is looking up out of the crevasse

Me in the crevasse

On the 3rd day we climbed the Matterhorn!!!

Niv & the Matterhorn from the other side

On our fourth day it was looking like the weather was going to start to turn so we made the decision to take a quick trip down to Aladdin’s Cave in the morning, have an abseil in, a quick walk about then climb out and back to camp where we packed up and headed back home. It ended up being a stunning day, the deepest bluest sky I’ve seen in a long time. It made for a very pleasant drive back to base despite my blasted doo suit which decided it was time to cut off the circulation from my wrists to my hands!!!!!

Ah, I think Niv was probably glad to get back to base, if he wasn’t constantly reminding Robbie and I not to knock the tilly lamp with our heads every time we got in and out of the tent he was having to listen to my fairly constant grumblings about how it’s impossible to do anything when you’re trussed up in fifty million layers of clothing and carrying around a zillion jingly jangly things on a belt!!!!

Aladdin’s Cave

Bottom of Aladdin’s Cave

Me climbing in Aladdin’s Cave area

Needless to say we had a fantastic trip. We did go home a day early but that was made up for by having a day trip down to Creek 4 & 5 at the coast where we went exploring into the most enormous crevasse I have ever seen in my life (not hard, I’ve not seen many) but it was huuuuuge!!!! Anyway, will save that for another update as this one has got pretty long now not to mention the time it’s taken me to write it!!!!

Hope everyone back home is well. I’m having a great time here but I’m missing everyone very much. Keep in touch x x x

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The season has been pretty busy so far so getting off base to do recreational activities has been fairly limited. Luckily though we have had stunning weather this past week with temperatures fluctuating around -10 to -18 with clear blue skies and next to no wind. Perfect climbing weather according to our field GA’s and they were right.

Thursday night a small group of us headed down to the coast to have a go at ice climbing. The sun is starting to go down here so the sky was beautiful, the ice cliffs were stunning, the sun was trying to set in one direction and the moon was shining bright from the other and to top it off we had about a dozen Orcas frolicking (or whatever orcas do) in the sea literally metres away from us at times.

The ice cliffs are about 30 metres high and before we can even think about starting to climb up them we have to get down them. This involves abseiling off the side of the cliff. We’ve practiced this a couple of times now, off a much smaller ice cliff and off the Laws platform (home!!) but when faced with throwing yourself (sorry, gently lowering yourself) off a 30 foot sheer ice cliff for me at least panic set in. Rich the outgoing GA was fantastic and spent a good few minutes getting me used to dangling from the abseil and letting go and finding out for myself that it really will hold me if I stop! Once I’d stopped panicking the camera came out and a few pics were taken of Rob one of my fellow winters climbing his way back up the cliff.

Although going down was pretty scary it was child’s play when compared with climbing back up. Although not as scary it was a million times harder work. I have never felt my arms and legs scream so much with pain. There was a point where I was so tired I didn’t think I would make it all the way up. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on which way you look at it) though this wasn’t an option, it was the only way out!!!! Anyway, after a bit of a rest, ie, Rich holding me on the cliff by the rope I mustered up enough energy to get up the last bit. So, although knackering it was absolutely brilliant. Will definitely be looking forward to doing more of that on my forthcoming winter trip.

Here are a few pics from the trip.

View from the top of the cliffs

Me getting ready to start climbing

Me climbing

Nearly at the top (terrible technique!!!)

Victorious at the top!!!!

Dangling over the ice cliff (safely attached to a rope I hasten to add!!).

You can see the sea ice starting to form.

Orca

Although they were so close I didn’t manage to get any decent pics but you can just about make this one out.

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Firstly, sorry I’ve not updated my blog for so long. There is so much to write about but so little time to sit down and sift through the zillions of photos and get something onto paper (electronic paper!!!).

The season is coming to an end now. The Ernest Shackleton arrived back at Halley on Thursday and end of season relief started. Tomorrow (Sunday), all being well the Shackleton will leave heading back to the Falklands with all the summer staff and the 2008 wintering team leaving the 11 of us to look forward to our winter at Halley.

Here are a few pics of base so you can get an idea of what I see each day here! I will write a proper article about base life soon and put some more pics up.

Laws Platform - Home

Office, Bedroom, Library, Gym, Dining Room, Kitchen, Bar, Living Room. No need to go outside for anything!!!!

Garage and Drewery Building (Summer Accommodation)

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As winterers we are lucky enough (usually) to go on a flight with the Halley pilot and sit in as co-pilot. In order to be allowed to do this we must first learn how to put up the V25 tent used by the pilots, learn how to use the primus stove and tilly lamp and camp out for a night so if worst case scenario happens (or best case depending on your train of thought) and we get stuck somewhere overnight we would be able to survive.

So, in order to do this our two field assistants Rich and Niv (my wintering FA) took us out on an overnight trip down to Windy Creek to learn all these things and to practice some of the winter skills we learnt on our field course in Derbyshire back in September.

We left base at around 5pm and arrived at Windy Creek around 6.30pm. The first job was to learn how to put up the tents, use the primus and tilly and work out how all our bedding works!

That might sound a bit strange but believe me when you have a carry mat, a thermarest, a sheepskin rug, a fleece liner, a -30 rab sleeping bag in another outer protective liner and another inner liner it does take a bit of practice getting it all sorted, especially in a tent that is definitely sized to fit!!!

By the time the 10 of us had pitched our tents and even started to think about cooking our two FA’s had pitched, cooked, eaten, washed up and dug out and set up our pee tent!! I reckon in, ooooo, about 13 months time I’ll be up to that speed as well!

I’m aware I’m rambling so, to cut a long story short it was midnight by the time we had all roped up, walked down to the cliff edge and got ourselves ready for our first Antarctic abseil.

I don’t know about the others but at the same time as being really excited I was also a little nervous. I mean these ice cliffs are a good 40 metres off the ground. As my turn came round I anxiously checked, double checked and re-checked before sliding to the edge and going over and you might imagine my surprise when I looked down to find the abseil was about 5 metres and then we hit a gentle slope which we could walk down to the bottom, hmmmm, still, plenty more time for extreme abseiling!!!

The penguin colony this year has unfortunately suffered badly at the hands of the environment. The sea ice that would normally be around to allow the emperors to hop out of the sea and back onto the ice shelf is no longer there and the drop from the ice shelf to the sea is too high for them to ascend. This means that many of the chicks have perished so rather than having an ice shelf brimming with emperors and chicks it was a very sparse colony of perhaps 30-40 chicks and about 4 emperors. It is a stark reminder of the environment that these creatures have to contend with.

Ice shelf looking very barren.

Apparently it never snows at Halley!!! They are not snowflakes you can see!!!

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This update is a little belated as we’ve been at Halley now since the 1st Jan!

The last few days have been pretty busy getting used to our new home so I haven’t really had much time to myself for sorting out my blog. I finally managed to download my last lot of pics yesterday but was somewhat put off going through them when I realised I had taken 419 pictures in one day……… It’s very easy here, or at least on the ship to get stuck behind the camera.

Anyway, back to the 31st Dec………………..

We were due to arrive at Halley early on the 31st but it seemed the Ice had other ideas. The ship got stuck at about 3am in some pretty thick ice and it took the crew around 6-7hrs to get us unstuck using some pretty extreme measures, will explain more later.  Getting stuck was definitely a blessing in disguise for us at it turned out to be the most beautiful day weather wise and various different species of wildlife decided to make an appearance to see what was going on!!

So, how to get a 79 metre, ice strengthened vessel that is stuck in the ice out……………..!

1. Start moving water from various tanks to try and move the ship from side to side to shift it’s weight and loosen up the ice.
2. Continue doing this for about 4 hours.
3. Pull a container out of the cargo hold and dangle it off the side of the ship to try and shift the weight.

4. When this doesn’t work, bash the container on the ice a few times!!!

5. When this doesn’t work, put the container back on the ship and take off Tula the big boat thing that weighs a bit more than the container and hang that off the side of the ship and swing it around a few times.

6. Eventually, after much patience and a lot of effort from the crew the ice finally gave way and we could reverse out and find a new route to Halley.

After a few reverse moves we were finally back into semi-open water again and it was like being on a pond, there wasn’t a ripple on the surface other than those made by the ship, truly stunning.

After an hour or so of enjoying the calm waters and beautiful scenery we moved into open water and the huge ice shelf of Antarctica loomed in front of us, this was it, we were almost there. We spent about another 3 hours sailing next to the ice cliffs and made a stop off at N9 one of the potential sites to use for relief. It’s not ideal though as it’s a good 5hr ride away from base in the vehicles so can make relief take twice as long as usual, we were lucky though as Creek 4 which is only 12km from base had good sea ice this year so we were able to moor up there.

Various pics below for you and I will write again soon to tell you all about life on base and what I’m doing!

Oh, New Year’s Eve was spent on the ship which was great fun. The oldest person on board rang the old year out and the youngest rang the New Year in, sailing tradition I think or at least BAS Antarctic Ship tradition!!!

Ice cliffs as we sail around the coast

Some wildlife…………

Penguin in disguise as a Snow Petrel!

N9 Relief Site

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Technically it is Christmas day but for us we will not be celebrating until the 27th when we’re further into the sea ice and can park the ship up which allows the crew to take a bit more time off to enjoy the celebrations.

The winds have dropped significantly and the large rolling waves have been replaced with enormous icebergs and floes. The noise as you crunch through the ice is incredible.

We have seen a few lone penguins and one seal basking on the ice, brrrrrr!

At 5pm we went up onto the Focsil which is the very front part of the ship and sang Christmas carols and ate mince pies and drank mulled wine, yummy. The singing was, well let’s just say very amusing!!

Here are some iceberg pics for you all…………………. and a couple of me as requested. And no comments about the chubby face please…….. the food here is exceptionally good and my self control exceptionally low and the gym as yet unused!!!!

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We’ve had a pretty uncomfortable couple of days now. Found out that last night we were having gale force 11 winds which is one away from hurricane style wind, so I’m told. The port holes on the port side of the ship were all closed up from inside, this is the first time any of the BAS staff have ever seen this happen on the ship. The crew were really worried that the force of the waves could blow the port holes through. I’m glad I was sleeping through all of this!!!

I’ve been up on the Bridge quite a bit today taking some pictures and video and also spending more time with Steve learning about the radio and comms. Have been studying satellite images that show the weather around the world. It’s pretty cool stuff. One image we looked at from a couple of years ago showed an iceberg that was larger than the island of South Georgia, amazing. It’s what the crew use to work out what route to take through the sea ice as you can see where it has opened up and started to make gaps.

Here are a few pics to try and show you the bad weather we’ve been having.

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Sea Sickness…………….

It seems that most people on board have been affected by this to varying degrees. Some people have suffered really badly and have been glued to their beds, others are getting by with the help of sea sickness tablets.

I felt rough for the first 24hrs and then as quickly as it came on it left which is great because being at sea is really fantastic but only if you’re feeling well.

My first night I slept more soundly than I can ever remember. My second night I didn’t sleep a wink! I just heard from someone that we had an 8 metre swell during the night and one of the ships stabilisers hadn’t been working so the ship was pitching and rolling violently all night. Cabins in the morning looked like someone had been in and ransacked them!

Gash…………………

This is basically a term used to cover all manner of cleaning, tidying, sorting rubbish etc etc. To my delight I was on gash yesterday (Saturday). Not only was I shattered still from the travelling but this is also the busiest day of gash as you do extra jobs to get ready for Sunday which is inspection day! In actual fact being on gash was not bad at all, it was good to be kept busy and it is the best way to find out where many things are on board and how things work.

Saturday night BBQ………….

Start as we mean to go on I think is the phrase!! The BBQ was great, the tastiest steak and shrimps I’ve had in a good while. There was no need to add salt, the sea water spray took care of that!! In the evening we were treated to the sight of lots of Dolphins swimming alongside the ship. Unfortunately my photography skills have not yet improved enough to have got a decent shot but you can vaguely see the form of a dolphin in the pic below!

Whales…………

This afternoon (Sunday) while watching Quantum of Solace someone rushed in to say Whales had been spotted on the port side of the ship. Time seemed to stand still for a couple of seconds while seemingly we all weighed up the pros and cons of going out in the cold versus watching James Bond. It wasn’t really a contest, as someone pointed out later, you can always pause James Bond!

Given the disastrous photo’s of the dolphin’s yesterday I decided to give the camcorder a go this time. Have got some reasonable footage, I now just have to work out how to get it off my camcorder and onto the web site, so watch this space…………….!

Tomorrow…………

This is the start of training and refresher courses. The main aim is to get us up to speed with what will be expected of us once we reach the ice shelf and have to start relief. From what I know so far I will go straight up to the base and help Dean out on the radio’s co-ordinating everything, let’s hope I can remember how to ’speak like a geek’ (straight from the mouth of our Long Range Radio instructor earlier this summer!!).

Hope everyone is well back home

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You would think checking in two and a half hours before your flight was due to leave was plenty of time but no, not when you’re flying with BA. If you want any chance of getting on your flight check in online otherwise you don’t stand a chance, hence my problem!

Good old BA are overbooking all of their flights and rather than doing what they used to which was to offer people to go on standby and fly the next day and take a very nice compensation deal they are now operating on a first come first served basis and those that do not have a seat if everyone turns up get to spend a delightful night at the Ibis hotel in Hounslow. I wasn’t bitter at all, I mean had I got the flight I would have had a night and day in Cape Town!

Luckily I wasn’t having to deal with this all alone as Giles also couldn’t get a seat on the plane. In all, we spent 5 hours at Heathrow being pushed from pillar to post. When it was finally confirmed that we weren’t getting on the flight someone managed to book us on the Virgin flight to Cape Town which left the same evening but an hour later. BA told us that as long as we got there 45 mins before the flight departed that we would be fine. With the help of Giles’s Brother in Law we made it from T5 to T3 in record time and had 20 minutes to spare, so we thought, but noooooo, it was not to be, Virgin close their flights 60 mins before departure not 45 as BA had said and to make matters worse BA hadn’t phoned through to say we were on our way so we missed the flight by 1 minute.

So, back we went to T5 to harangue BA some more where we were told our only option left was to take the evening flight the following day and spend a night at the Ibis hotel, joy of joy!

Still, we made it to Cape Town just after 6am on Friday 19th, were rushed through immigration to deal with our paperwork as we were on a one way ticket and sailing out and then rushed on to the ship which had been due to set sail at 9am that morning. Luckily for us the ship was then held up until mid afternoon as some work that was being done on one of the radars had overrun. This gave us about an hour to enjoy the sights of Cape Town’s waterfront, we were moored literally about 1 minute walk away.

Sign post to the South Pole!

Ernest Shackleton - Home for the next couple of weeks

Dwarfing the other ships!

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