I didn’t really write a lot about my week at Fossil Bluff and seeing as at the moment we have had a few days of bad weather on base and I have only been doing paperwork I thought I would write a little about what you do at Fossil Bluff. The place is a fueling stop for the twin otters taking field parties south into the deep field. We make sure the runway is clearly marked and the flags and drums are maintained. When a plane comes in we man a fire sledge and give them the latest wind speed and direction and after landing we fill them up with fuel from the drums.

So basically you are a fuelling attendant and also a met observer when you are there. Every hour we do met observations for the airplanes and call Rothera on the HF radio with the information which includes – wind speed, direction, dew point, temperature, cloud cover and height, contrast and horizontal definition, pressure etc.

This is the met office at Fossil Bluff! The file folders have reports going back to the early 60’s when the base was used as a base for geological studies. They had a few dog teams at the hut to get field parties further south and across to the antarctic peninsula.

This picture shows how anything that is left on the snow eventually melts in and then freezes in so it is a daily job to hack away at the ice with an ice axe and make sure that drums of fuel stay on wooden pallets so they can be used and then the empties removed back to Rothera. In previous decades the drums were emptied and then left but now BAS is being responsible and all dunnage is taken out. We spent a few days digging out dunnage from the ice from many years ago.

Some days planes don’t come in but we still have to do the met obs but we can do them on the satellite phone allowing us to go for climbs and walks in the local area.

When the Gould came in for calibration of our CDT and Gould night we also did an oil spills excercise. The ship had according to the scenario got a hole in the port side tank and was leaking fuel out. So the people on base that had been trained in oil spill response went to work. We slipped launched the boat in North Cove and came around to assist in putting the boom around the stern of the boat.

The fast tank was assembled and the skimmers by the guys on land and we then pretended to skim the fuel off the surface into the tank.

A month ago or so we walked Reptile Ridge past Repeater Buttress but then it was late in the day so we came off about half way to Vals. On Saturday we made it one little bump before Vals and then abseiled down off the ridge. It turned out to be a beautiful afternoon.

The weather has turned wintery here so I have spent the last two evenings in the woodwork shop learning how to turn things on the lathe. I got hold of a block of mahogony which was the old bar and made a bowl. There is a lot of patience involved but it is very therapeutic.

Professor Lloyd Peck (Biologist) is off on the Dash on Monday he is the last of our visiting scientist to depart. Despite it meaning over 20 knots we went out for his last dive this year for a little 15 minute jolly at 30meters. This was around his 530th Antarctic dive having visited the Antarctica 10 times in his career. In 2009 he was awarded a Polar Medal. The Polar Medal was instituted in 1904 for members of Captain Scott’s first expedition to the Antarctica. Regulations required that ‘acquisition of knowledge of polar regions shall normally be ten years such service to be considered a medal’. Greater emphasis is now placed on individual service.

In the meantime this morning I fitted a choke to an engine that didn’t have one and prepped three engines to be sent out on the ship back to the UK for sale. Yesterday we got in quite a bit of boating but Wednesday was a wash out with it blowing up to 50 knots.

This afternoon I will be making creme brulee after many people asked for an encore!

The camera boat Terra Nova with Danny driving.

The carbon fiber camera used for filming Frozen Planet a BBC sequel to the Planet Earth.

All three boats rafted together while filming for the Frozen Planet program at Rothera.

Waiting for the wave on the ramp in my boatsuit as I had come straight from SAR.

Evacuated to the traverse waiting…
At 6am on Saturday morning the fire alarm went off so we dragged ourselves out of bed (only half hour early in my case) to the tagging board all thinking bad thoughts about the person who had burnt the toast. Well it wasn’t toast… The Base Commander had been called by BAS as due to the Chilean earthquake the USCG had put out a tsunami watch for the Antarctic Peninsula including where Rothera is! We were told originally that it was meant to hit at 7am and we were given the option to make our own choice as to what we wanted to do. However, the watch was changed to a warning that we could see this wave hit Rothera at 10am so John made the decision to require a full evacuation of station.

All the airplanes were to take to the skies and head towards the Falklands. Everyone involved in the air unit went to work to get all the planes in the air by 9:30am and that meant that I had to provide SAR cover with the boat until they were in the air before retreating with the rest of the base up the ramp to the high ground of the traverse. The heavy machinery was taken to as high ground as possible. Survival and SAR equipment was taken up to the caboose including tents set up and extra food. So it was all go on base. In the end there was a 20cm rise in sea level for a short period of time. So lots of excitement at Rothera.

When I was at Fossil Bluff the Rothera half marathon was going on with people running around the crushed rock runway for charity. I had promised to do it but because I was in the field I took some skis instead.

The runway at Fossil Bluff is slightly uphill so it took some effort as the slight downhill was upwind so that didn’t give me any relief. At 1.45km it was many many times around. I ended up carrying some pebbles and leaving them at the end so that I knew how many times I had gone around!

The shadows got longer as I got to the end of the 21.9km half marathon on skis.

Tired at the end at 9pm at night after 4 1/2 hours on the skis.

The day winter decided to come to Rothera with large amounts of snowfall.Terri and I managed to beat the season record with a dive time of 30 seconds shy of an hour. We had air left to complete the hour but had collected the Latties we needed to so headed to the surface.

This is a picture of us getting in the water which was covered in a mix of Shuga ice and Brash Ice as well as Icebergs. We were in collecting Laternula elliptica which are molluscs that have to be dug out of the sediment very carefully so as not to break their delicate shell. Patience is needed.

Last week when I was on my way back from Fossil Bluff Tris (comms guy) came up on the HF to ask me about my sailing experience as Skip Novak was sailing by base on Pelagic. Due to swine flu we are not allowing any private vessels or cruise ships stop at base this year. After landing I took a dive out to Rose Garden and also we stopped by a boat that was anchored between Donnelley and Anchorage. It turned out to be Isabelle Autissier on her boat Ada II. Isabelle is a legendary french singlehanded Open 60 sailor. We ended up having tea and biscuits on the boat and provided weather information for them for two days while they stayed at anchor and weathered the 35 knot northerly before heading south for some climbing.