Sunday is a day off for some people on base including me (picture above is me ice climbing today!). The planes were still flying though taking people off into the field some are going for 90 days living in a tent on ice shelves doing a variety of experiments.

We didn’t finish all our field training last week so we had a little more to finish this morning including how to rope up as an alpine pair and the use of prussicks when travelling across glaciers. Basically you hope that if your partner falls through a snow bridge they will self rescue while you brace yourself. However as they might be injured you have to learn how to hoist the person from a crevasse. BAS uses a system called Z pulley system which provides a mechanical advantage to pull the person out of the crevasse.

You have to first of all arrest the fall then place suitable anchors and link them together. After doing that you can take yourself out of the brace position as the persons weight is on the anchors and you can carefully go to the edge of the crevasse and assess the situation. While you are at the edge you prepare the edge as the line will be cutting into the snow so you use a ice axe and hammer to create a lip for the line to slide over you can also at this point descend if necessary to help out your injured partner. Next you construct a pully system using jumars and blocks and can hoist the person out.

After lunch (a cooked English breakfast) we went out for a few hours of ice climbing.

It is the first time I have done it and it really was great fun. A new sport to do in the evenings as the ice cliff is just behind the hanger less than a 1/4 mile from my room.

Another great day down south 🙂 Can’t believe I have only been here a week..

The wind shifted to the south the other day and cleared all the brash ice out of hanger cove leaving the big bergy bits.

There is so much to do on base and not enough time to do it in!

On Saturday we have a half day of work but it seems like most people work through saturday and sunday. I did my usual 5km row on the machine in the gym in the morning. I then had a morning of training including seal watch – which means for 30 minutes before the divers go in you have to watch the area of the dive for any leopard seals. Then I took the divers out for my first go at coxing the boat and as they were at their safety stop a leopard seal surfaced behind one of the icebergs so divers were called to the surface and were quickly brought into the boat. Once we see a seal you are not able to dive for 4 hours so my morning check out dive was cancelled.

After a few hours cleaning up some things in the boatshed Adam and I went up to Vals the little ski hill. The light was pretty flat but we managed to use the skidoo to groom some of the run. We spent a few hours doing runs burning quite a bit of skidoo fuel as we would drive a skier up the hill and then drive down next to the skier.

After skiing Claire had come back from her flight as co pilot and her and I went for a run on the runway. After the first time around penguins were spotted next to the runway so we had to stop and watch five adele penguins do their thing unfortunately I didn’t have my camera – next time.

Saturday night is fancy dinner night where we have table cloths and wine. As I don’t drink I had Ribena which there is plenty of on base. The chef makes a three course meal which was really good. We had fruit salad for starters followed by fish stew and NZ green lipped mussels, brocolli and mash. For dessert we had a cheese cake in filo pastry with strawberries on top. Lee the chef is really doing a great job with frozen and canned food!

The sun doesn’t set at the moment so between midnight and two you have twilight seen in the above picture.

On friday I spent the morning cleaning some things in the boatshed followed by a morning of learning how to drive the tractor and a refresher on the crane. I use the tractor and the crane every day several times a day as everytime the boat is used it is launched and then taken out the minute you get back to the dock.

The afternoon was taken up going out with some divers in south cove and then going for a ‘jolly’ with base commander to see all the dive sites around Ryder Bay and the landing areas for the huts that are on the islands nearby. It was amazing weaving around massive icebergs and little bergy bits. The iceburgs are beautifully scupltured and depending on how the light hits them are turqoiuse blue or even pink. It was quite mild -1C but next time I think I will wear my liner gloves as well as my work gloves. By the time we got the boats out and the engines flushed it was time to go in for dinner.

After dinner we walked around the point for the third time since we have been here. However, this time we were treated to a science talk about all the different science happening on the point. There are instruments that measure shooting stars and their trail apparently there are 4 per minute. This information is useful as it allows us to learn what is happening 60-90km into the atmosphere with regards to the wind direction and speed.

There is a memorial at the top of the point to people who have died while working from Rothera. Including one for Kirsty the marine assistant, a number of guys who ended up on sea ice that broke up and stranded them and also for an air crew that hit an iceberg just at the end of the runway on take off.

It was another late night as there is just too much to do on base. Adam serviced my skis ready for some skiing hopefully this afternoon.

Several people have asked about where I am staying. I am in Admirals house which is a really nice accomodation block. My room overlooks the runway and the mountains beyond.

Thanks to Myles for my sunflower 🙂

Clive the GA teaching us mountaineering skills promised us lots of physical activity and we did indeed get a lot! After packing up camp on thursday which meant lots of digging of snow from around the tents we headed back down to base in the snow cat and skidoos. We then kitted ourselves out in mountaineering equipment including boots, crampoons and ice axes. We all learnt how to tie together when glacier travelling so that if one person falls in a crevasse the other can haul them out.

We spent 4 hours behind the hanger on the icy sloop learning the 4 S’s – stepping, slipping, sliding and stopping (one GA added in screaming!). There are so many different techniques to learn. We also learnt how to use crampons and the different stepping techniques for going up and down the hill – french, front pointing, american and balling up. My legs really felt the work out as I spend so much time on my bum on a boat. The big one was learning to do an ice axe arrest in the case of falling down a slope towards a danger. Clive is a great teacher and built each skill up like building blocks.

We all had to learn how to hold an ice axe and then practice sliding feet first on our back, head first on our front and head first on our back down the ice and then stopping ourselves with the ice axe. By the end of the session we were all a bit bruised and cold and wet but it was really great fun. We didn’t finish all the mountaineering instruction so Clive is kindly giving up his day off this sunday and we are going to learn crevasse rescue and go for a climb in the technical travel area.

In the evening we went for a walk around Rothera point and watched the sun set as much as it does here at 11pm.

I am hanging out with the two Royal Navy guys one is a pilot and the other an observer. The title is a new saying I learnt from them it means something is very rare!

Well I am being given some rare opportunities down here that people would pay 1,000’s for. Yesterday and today we were doing what BAS calls jingle janglies.

Yesterday started with a 5km row on the rowing machine followed by an hour dissecting the field medical box with the Dr. The box has lots of great things in it and also going back over first aid stuff we learnt at conference including how to put a needle in someones chest cavity to sort out a collapsed lung and also injections concentrating on how to used powdered antibiotics.

The morning was spent learning how to use flares, vhf’s (a bit boring for me) and then how to use a tilley lamp and primus stove. You cook in the pyramid tents and have to know how to get the right time of flame so you don’t die from carbon monoxide poisoning. There are monitors for the CO in the tents so you don’t have to guess whether you are about to pass out or not.

We also received our P-rolls which are the bed rolls which go into the field. They are foam carry mats with a thermorest then a sheepskin then a -40 sleeping bag which has a fire retardent cover you put on top and then if you want more warmth a thick fleece liner. They are really warm and weigh around 30lbs so it is necessary to ‘car camp’ with these.

We packed all the gear into the skidoos and the snow cat and headed up the ‘Ramp’ to Vals which is a ski area 5km from base. There is a porta cabin on skis up there with a stove etc which you can go to for the weekends and this is also where the field training occurs. The picture up top is of our 3 tents after we pitched them. It takes a long time to pitch one of the pyramid tents properly. You have to dig a 4 meter by 4 meter square hole in the snow that is a shovel height deep orientated to the wind properly. You make this level and then dig a hole for each corner of the tent. So basically a lot of digging is involved.

We cooked our ‘manfood’ in the tent. Which is freeze dried meals from 2002! I am glad I am based on the base as the guys right now that are going into the deep field are going to be out for 60 to 90 days eating that stuff! We made an effort in Claire and I’s tent though and had a 5 course meal that wasn’t that bad. We started with ready salted crisps then ministrone soup and a main course of pasta carbonara. The palette cleanser was a orange granitta – snow with orange powdered drink! It takes a while to melt the snow to get water but there is an endless supply of snow to cool the drinks! After the orange granitta we had fruit crumble and custard. The crumble was fruit biscuits with custard on top.

We finally got to sleep in the broad day light of 11:30pm! The tent was very warm. Will right more tomorrow. Too much to do. Adam wants to go skiing and my legs hurt from too much mountaineering involving learning ice axe arrest!

Unfortunately almost all of BAS’s activities currently use hydrocarbon fossil fuels as their main source of energy; from heating and lighting Antarctic stations to powering ships, aircraft, electricity generators and scientific equipment. As we all know burning fossil fuels releases CO2 into the atmosphere enhancing greenhouse gas emissions and exentuating human induced climate change. Check out BAS’s website about the policy of reducing this impact.

A morning of powerpoints (including information on what to do as a co-pilot) and tours around the buildings and then an afternoon of fun on the skidoos and gators (golf buggy). It is a little chilly and overcast today but still very very beautiful.

We went for a walk around Rothera point which is about 45 minutes. There were terns, elephant seals, weddell seals, blue eyed shags. The water is still very clear as the summer algae bloom hasn’t started yet so the iceberg parts under water are very clear. There are four huge bergs grounded off the point at the moment and the cove on the north end of the runway is full of broken up sea ice and icebergs.

After our walk and the last twin otter had landed we got clearance to go for a 3 km run around the runway. Wow I am unfit… I am working up to the 10km run at New Years Eve which is 5.5 times around the runway. So I figure if I run 1.5 times around every day this week and next week 2 times the week after 2.5 times I might complete the run. I will for sure be lapped but completion is all I am aiming for. It is cold out there and with a headwind it is a hard run!

I am now into day 2 of no chocolate so we will see how my new resolution goes. The chocolate pudding with custard was so very tempting. Adam the navy pilot I came down here with has given up alchol till mid February. Claire the docter has given up that would be too embaressing for her if I put it on my blog!

We are in Rothera finally it is amazing… I got to fly in the jump seat for take off from Falklands and then was in the pilot seat on the Dash 7 for part of the Drake’s Passage crossing.

Wow can’t believe I am here.

Induction training starts tomorrow with aircraft familiaristaion, health and safety, station comms, environmental and medical, station tour, vehicle familirisation and a walk around the point.

Have to go to bed as I am really tired but it is bright sunlight out 🙂

Have a great week.

Went to see the battlefieds today in the Falklands. Long trip to get here left thursday from the UK stopped at Madrid, Santiago, Punta Arenas, Gallegos and now at Stanley. It is bleak here in comparison to the lushness of Santiago and there is snow on the higher ground.

Tomorrow we are set to fly south on the Dash 7 however, this is weather dependent.