Summer time........

.....and the livin' is chilly.

Well relief was as hectic as we expected. When the ship finally broke free of the sea ice and managed to get to Halley all on board were keen to get started unloading and getting supplies up to base. Like relief last year, a lot of my time was spent in the Comms office flight following and handing over to Dean the Comms Manager for the next year. The relief site was N9 again, which is the furthest away of the regular relief sites and normally means a longer operation. This year the plane did quite a few rotations to the ship and back which reduced the workload on the snocats somewhat, but also the vehicles section had a new secret weapon, in the form of very large Challenger vehicles and converted John Deere tractors. These are able to pull much heavier loads than the snocats and at faster speeds so relief was all over in 7 days. Luckily Dean picked up the flight following pretty quickly, so I got to copilot a couple of flights over to the ship. It's been a year since I was any more than about 20 feet above ground so it was nice to get up in the plane again. Everything looks very different from the air, with the base looking much more spread out than it feels on the ground, and having got used to being confined to the same couple of square kilometres it's a very liberating feeling being up in the sky. The flagged roadway from the base to N9 was already looking very well worn, and we took the opportunity to buzz a couple of snocats on our way over.

Snocats taking cargo to Halley

The ship looked much smaller than I remembered, nestled into a cove in the ice shelf and dwarfed by it's surroundings. We were picking up a variety of cargo from the ship so were met at the skiway by a snocat and sledge full of cargo handlers. I had the strenuous and very responsible job of holding a calculator and totting up the weight of everything as it was loaded onto the plane, calling a halt when we got to 1200kg to ensure we'd be able to take off again.

The Shack at N9

The rest of relief consisted mostly of moving boxes, moving barrels, or opening large crates and moving the contents. At the end of the week the ship headed north again, along with Vicki, Fran and Anto, the first of our wintering team to head off. It felt very much like the end of an era as they left so we were all up at the skiway for an emotional farewell.

Leaving committee at the skiway

And then we were full swing into the summer. The base takes on a very different feel, not just because the population has gone from 16 to about 60, but there is definitely more of a buzz and a sense of urgency about the place. That's not to say we didn't do any work over winter but things are definitely a bit more relaxed in the dark months. Luckily even in summer Halley is still small enough that you get to know everyone on base pretty quickly so there's still a bit of a family atmosphere. The main focus of summer for outgoing winterers is handing over to their replacements, ensuring they know where everything is and going over the finer points of the job. Dean comes from an IT background like me, making that side of things an easy handover, so after a quick run through the radio equipment and a tour of the HF masts and the comms container he was pretty much up to speed allowing to me to leave him to it and put my feet up for the summer!

Unfortunately we had a couple of projects to complete so my smug feeling of relaxation was short lived. First to be tackled was the install of a new Dartcom, which is a satellite system giving us images of the ice shelf and surrounding area. The existing Dartcom lived on the Simpson and was largely held together with gaffer tape and wishful thinking, so a shiny new one had come in to be installed in the Laws. Having found all the boxes we unpacked it all in the gym to try and see what was what. The internal equipment consists of a rack full of impressive looking computers, while on the roof there's a dome housing the satellite dish, and also a GPS compass. Everything had been meticulously labelled in the UK before being shipped so it all went together fairly easily, the hardest part being getting the dome equipment up onto the roof and aligning the dish with a compass bearing. The whole system is up and running now and giving very clear images, hopefully it will survive the winter just as well.

We started with a large collection of boxes

Shiny new computers

Jim and Terry lay the foundation for the dome

Dish installed and ready to go

Ready to withstand the winter

All our highly efficient handover work in the Comms department meant I was suddenly free to help out with some other base tasks.
"Morning Dave," said Pat. "You're going out in the plane today with John and Nic."
"Great," I thought, "off on a jolly."
"You'll need spare warm clothes and a shovel."
"Bugger."
Our job for the day was to fly out to Site5 and raise a fuel depot, so with barely enough time to pack a bag and make some sandwiches we were off to the skiway. The flight was about 3 hours, with a stop on the way to refuel at Bluefields, a nice little spot by the sea. Site5 itself was rather more typical of an Antarctic fuel depot, a couple of flags and a post in the middle of a large flat white expanse. The depot turned out to be not too badly buried and after about 4 hours digging we'd raised the 6 full and 30 or so empty barrels to the surface, loaded a few empties onto the plane and were away. Well almost. We were bimbling merrily along at take off speed but the plane remained resolutely on the ground despite much yanking on the controls by Ian the pilot. It turns out that very soft powdery snow can be a problem for aircraft as it rides up over the front of the skis preventing take off, so we taxied back and forth over the same tracks a couple of times to compact the snow and had another go, this time sucessfully as the plane grudgingly got airborn. We got back to base at about 11pm after a good day out, and rewarded ourselves with a lie in the following day.

Site5: There's drums under there somewhere

The team in full swing. Photo by Ian.

Drums raised. Photo by Ian.

As it turned out I should have paid more attention at Bluefields when we stopped to refuel as I was soon going to become much better acquainted with it..... This time it was to be just John and I spending a couple of days raising the depot, so the following week we were going out with tent, food, radio and of course plenty of spare shovels. Bluefields was a larger depot, about 200 drums according to the plan, and was buried deeper than Site5, with the drums under a couple of feet of snow. We went out with Bob and Ian on the plane, the plan being for them to drop us off and head back to Halley. I hadn't realised that the plane couldn't leave until we had established contact with a base, so after a frustrating hour trying to raise people on HF and Iridium we finally got through to Rothera and set up our sched times, and Bob and Ian left us to it.

The plane departs

When the depot had been built last year someone had thoughtfully left behind a skidoo so we were saved quite a lot of manual labour. Having dug down to the first row of drums we created a ramp, and then after persuading the frozen barrels to separate were able to attach ropes and pull them out with the doo.

Drums ready to come out

Pulling out with the skidoo. Photo by Bob.

After a few attempts we had perfected a technique and were soon working well, although even at peak efficiency we were probably only getting out about 10 barrels an hour. The work was pretty hard but we were rewarded with a lovely view out to sea and the monotony was broken by the odd visit from aircraft.

The view from the tent

Ian and Bob came back several times to pick up barrels, as well as another plane that was working nearby at a different depot. The weather was somewhat warmer than it had been on our winter trips so the tent was plenty warm enough and after a days digging we certainly slept soundly. Well I did, John just got an introduction to my now legendary snoring, but that's all part of the Antarctic camping experience.........

After a long day. Photo by Ian

At the end of day 3 one of the planes brought us a drum crusher for the empties. Crushing the drums reduces them to about a third of their size and means we can fit many more onto a plane, which means less flights required to get them back to Halley.

The drum crusher in action. Photo by Bob.

After 4 days of digging, dragging, swearing and crushing we'd raised all the drums and rebuilt the depot on the surface, so we struck camp and headed back to Halley for a much needed shower to try and get rid of the all pervading smell of avtur.

The finished article

Loading the plane to go home

Unfortunately I was going on to a week of nights so I needed to try and stay up as long as possible. I made it to about half past five in the morning before collapsing into bed. For the next few days I ached. A lot.

Being on nights meant I neatly avoided the drama of raising the satellite dome. This houses the dish that gives us all our communications with the outside world, and we were a bit apprehensive about raising as it means switching everything off, and last year it took a week to find the satellite again. This year we were luckier and had everything back up and running in a day, thanks to Dean's expert work with the spectrum analyser (that's techspeak for accidentaly tripping over the satellite when he least expected it).

As the summer is a busier time there tends to be a bit less going on leisure-wise, although this year has seen a huge rise in the number of kiting enthusiasts, on a good day there are about 10 of them out whizzing up and down on skis and boards. We had high drama in the annual doubles pool competition, with the last few matches going down to the wire, and we've managed a couple of musical evenings to give people a chance to showcase their talents. We also had the traditional soccer match, with the traditionally liberal interpretation of rules, and a very good BBQ. The vehicles guys also extended an open invitation to anyone who fancied having a go at driving the new Challengers and John Deeres so a few of us went down and grinned like idiots for half an hour or so.

The answer to all your commuting problems

In action towing the garage to it's new location

But now the season is almost over, the ship is due back next week for second call and those of us who are leaving will be off back to the Falklands and then home. I'll leave with mixed emotions, it's been an incredible year down here and I'll be sad to leave, but I'm also looking forward to seeing hills and trees, scenery that isn't white, and catching up with friends and family back home. In the meantime there is a very good article here with advice for those of you awaiting the return of someone from the Antarctic.

A white Christmas - in the middle of summer

Happy New Year! Hope you all had an excellent Christmas as well. It's been a bit strange here, not being bombarded by the constant Christmas advertising since September it all tends to creep up on you quite quickly.

The beginning of December saw us all out and about doing more preparation work for the summer season. We had more fuel raising to do, and this time I managed to avoid knocking any teeth out. It was a lovely day to be outside and we were soon down to shirt sleeves, which seems a bit bizarre when you're surrounded by snow. It was still very warm work under a fleece lined hard hat though.

Anto backs the crane up to the buried fuel drums

The drums are hooked up to be plucked from the snow...

..and then dropped onto a sledge

Halfway through the pile

The operation in full swing

We also raised a posse to help Jules with a catenary raise, which involved pulling about 40 enormous wooden stakes out of the snow, only to bang them straight back in again, and reattach a cable on top. After that I volunteered to help Liz with her legs...... Well actually the legs of the building. Like everything else here the Laws building has to be raised to keep it above the snow, so Liz and I were up ladders manhandling steel plates and then raising the building on a giant hydraulic jack built in to the leg. Unfortunately the jack needs about 60 pumps to raise the building by 20mm so it's a fairly long job.

Pulling catenary stakes out of the ground

Planting the Halley orchard

Putting the finishing touch

The following day was another chance to visit the penguin colony, which has changed dramatically since the last visit. The penguins are now much more spread out across the sea ice, and where previously we saw adult penguins with some eggs and the odd tiny chick, now there are huge grey balls of fluff wandering about bullying their parents into feeding them. The penguins seem to be a lot less interested in us now as well, so there were no curious groups coming up to say hello. There were other interested parties about though, as we saw a handful of skuas flying about and a couple of petrels. Sadly the skuas seemed more interested in picking off underfed penguin chicks.

Very spread out penguin colony

A skua pauses to see if Bob is edible

Some chicks are as big as their parents

Others have a bit more growing to do

Spot which ones have been taking growth hormones

We've had more planes through as a German Dornier came on it's way to Neumayer base, where 3 of our summer team were waiting to get here having travelled via South Africa, then Novo and Sanae bases. When they finally got here the fog had closed in a bit so the plane was forced to land out on the Windy drumline, a couple of kilometres away from base. Our rapid response refuelling team was immediately sent out to meet them - in a dozer that averages about 5km per hour. Eventually the plane got bored and decided to taxi towards us instead.

That signalled the beginning of summer, no longer are there just the 16 of us here. We've now got a BAS plane stationed here as well, which brought a couple more people over from Rothera. It's nice to see some new faces though, and hear some different stories to the ones we've been telling each other for the last 9 months. The last week or so it's been touch and go as to whether or not we'd see any other faces at all though. We've been following the ship's progress through a combination of position reports and the blogs of people on board. All was going well until the ship got close to Neumayer base and then appeared to come to a shuddering halt. Although the Ernest Shackleton is an ice strengthened ship it's not an ice breaker, which is a crucial difference when faced with sea ice several metres thick. The ship spent a nerve wracking 10 days trying to find a way through the ice. Initially it just seemed like a minor irritation to add to an already interesting summer season, but then we started getting concerned about the lack of important things like fresh food and post. And the minor stuff like fuel to run the base. But as a result of the ship being late we did manage to have a relaxed Christmas meal and some celebrations which was a nice change from last year when the festive season seemed to pass us by altogether.

The relief operation is slowly starting to get underway now, the first couple of snocats have arrived with cargo from the ship and the plane has been back and forth a couple of times. Soon we'll be in full swing with a whole host of new people to get to know, and tell vastly exaggerated stories about how tough the winter was.

The end of winter approaches

Sometimes we need a reminder of what life is like in the real world, just in case we start to think that what we have down here is in some way normal. To this end Simon gave an interesting talk and slide show at the beginning of the month, showing us shots from various canoeing trips on the rivers of Scotland, and a ski touring holiday in Austria. OK, so the ski touring photos were quite similar to here, but the rest was a good opportunity to see some green scenery and trees.

Then a couple of days later to further highlight the changes happening here, we all had a trip on a cruise ship. Well not quite. In order to celebrate Vicki's birthday we decided to do a murder mystery party for dinner. If you've not done one of these before, everyone is given a character to play, and with the aid of a few clues and hints has to work out the identity of the murderer, usually good fun and a chance for everyone to bring out their inner sleuth. Ours was set on a 1920s cruise liner, and after much costume making, overacting, and accusations and counter-accusations, it turned out Simon was the dastardly murderer.

Straight from an Agatha Christie novel......... - Photo by Anto

Having had a fairly quiet week on nights (although we're now well into 24hr daylight), I was taking advantage of some good weather to raise a few catenaries when I was interrupted by John asking me and Jules to go and check the skiway. Skiway is a bit of a grand term for a line of drums in the snow marking where the planes should land, but nevertheless we checked they were still all there as we were due to have to some unexpected visitors. It turns out that the DC3 that had visited the previous week had run into difficulties and a search and rescue plane was coming through on it's way to help them out. Luckily no-one on the DC3 was hurt, they had just landed on some unexpectedly rough terrain and hit a large sastrugi, breaking a wheel strut and a propeller. Luckily there are agreements in place between the various Antarctic operators so in the event of a problem help can be called upon. In this instance a Twin Otter run by one of the tourist companies was coming through, so we had some more new people to meet, and had a very good evening entertaining the Canadian crew.

ALE Twin Otter at the skiway - Photo by Jules

The good weather continued for a while so I took advantage and spent a couple of pleasant hours sitting outside reading and enjoying the sunshine. It's a bit strange having the smell of suncream in the air but still wearing several layers of clothing and not being on a beach. Vicki and I also managed what seemed like a mammoth ski out to the 5k marker and back. Luckily we made it back in time to finish cooking dinner.

Preparation for summer is picking up pace now with more base jobs to do. One of the main jobs is cleaning the melt tank. This involves everyone having the luxury of extra long showers (a whole 4 minutes!) in order to use up the water so that people can climb into the melt tank and give it a good scrub out. Once this is done we should be able refill with water from the Drewry melt tank, but unfortunately this time there were problems with frozen pipes so we spent about a week doing daily water runs from the Drewry to the Laws in order to maintain a workable water supply. Luckily the tech services guys here pulled out all the stops and got things working again fairly quickly so we were able to do some washing again.

Filling a transit tank with water to take to the Laws

Also on the list of base jobs has been getting the Drewry, our summer accommodation building, fit for habitation as it is shut down for the winter with no heating so requires a bit of fettling and a good clean out to get going again, and various bits of sledge clearing and drum raising. As a result I've been frantically trying to locate all the bits of IT equipment that I took out of the Drewry at the end of last summer to make sure they still work, but I think I've found them all now.

All that was left to complete our preparations for summer was our end of winter celebrations. As usual on special occasions Nic produced a fantastic spread for dinner, and then we got the various instruments out and had a musical evening in the bar. Luckily we got a lie in the next day as we changed our clocks back to GMT -3 to put us in line with Rothera and the other bases. All that remains now is for the summer people and next year's winterers to arrive. Due to various logistical problems things are running a bit behind schedule but we expect to see the first summerers later this week, with most people arriving on the ship around the middle of December.

Winter trip II and new faces

Having not had an entirely successful first winter trip back in March, although we did get a couple of days away in a caboose, I was hopeful for better luck when the second round of trips came along. The second trip is usually longer, at about 10 days, which gives more opportunity for exploring and also more leeway in the event of bad weather. Luckily this time the weather was good enough to get away on day one. Simon and Vicki headed out to do some GPS work at the new Halley VI site in the morning, and in the afternoon we headed out. Taking four people on holiday for 10 days here involves a bit more than packing a couple of suitcases. We had four skidoos loaded up with bags containing rescue gear and spare clothes, and spades, ice axes and snow stakes all bungeed on to the back. We also had four sledges carrying tents, stoves, cooking equipment, food, p-bags (consisting of sleeping bag and liner, sleepmat, sheepskin), radios, fuel, utensils, medical supplies, and enough rope to keep Houdini busy for weeks. We had decided initially to go to the Rumples and set up camp there. The Rumples is an area near the coast where the ice shelf flows over ridges in the sea bed causing it to rise up and break apart causing a, well, rumpled effect. This is a favourite trip destination as you get to see some scenery other than the flat white vista we have become used to.

The trip out was about an hour ride by skidoo, initially just towing a sledge each, but as we got nearer to the Rumples and the risk of crevasses increased, we roped the skidoos up in pairs, the theory being that if one disappears down a big hole the second should prevent it from being completely unrecoverable. Skidoos are a great way to travel down here and will happily pull a loaded sledge at about 20kph, but can be a bit chilly as you're open to the elements. I'm always grateful for heated handlebar grips when I'm out on the bike in winter in the UK, but they're definitely an essential item down here. I suppose in a way it would be nice to have the romanticism of travelling with dogs like in the old days, but this may be outweighed by the hassle of carrying several hundred tins of Pedigree Chum instead of a couple of jerries of fuel.

Simon picked a path through the crevasses to the camp site and we spent a couple of hours setting up. The pyramid tents we use are pretty rugged and fairly easy to set up, but positioning needs to be thought about so it doesn't get snow blown straight through the door or end up acting as a giant sail in the first high wind. Once you've got all your sleeping gear, primus stove, tilly lamp, pots box, food box and tent box all set up inside the accomodation is pretty compact, but there's still room to move about, do your cooking, and hang clothes up to dry. The camp consisted of two tents with two people per tent, but in the evenings you tend to all end up in one tent playing cards or chatting. With the tents up we made sure all the other gear was easily to hand outside, covered over the skidoos and looked forward to a first night camping out on the wilderness.

Camp site with the Rumples in the background

Day 2 broke with a very cold tent and ice everywhere. Most people sleep with just a tiny hole in the top of the sleeping bag to breathe through and everything else well covered. There then commences a battle of wills, or a battle of bladders, to see who will break first and emerge from their cocoon to get the stove lit and put some snow on to melt. Once the primus and the Tilly are on the tent warms up pretty quickly and breakfast can be considered. We opted for a fairly leisurely morning, then went out for a stroll after lunch in the vicinity of the camp site. We found a crevasse so took the opportunity to explore it. First Simon cleared a couple of man sized holes in the top of the crevasse, then we set up the ropes and abseil point to head in. I'm not great with heights and all this abseiling malarkey still involves a fair bit of trepidation, but nevertheless I was determined to go in and have look. This involves a normal abseil down, but as there is no guarantee of a floor to stand on once inside, you then have to change from abseil equipment to jumar equipment to enable you to climb back up, all the while dangling on the rope hoping fervently that you did your harness up properly. It's all worthwhile though as the crevasse was beautiful inside. All of a sudden you're out of the wind blowing on the surface, and everything turns very blue. Looking down I couldn't see the bottom of the crevasse, so I didn't look down for very long, but all around were wonderful crystals and formations in the ice, and silence apart from the faint tinkling of ice falling below, or the puffing and swearing of the person on the other rope trying to climb back out. As we've all had a bit of jumaring experience by now on penguin trips the climb out wasn't too bad, especially with the addition of crampons to get a good grip on the ice wall. Having explored the crevasse we headed back to camp for tea and medals.

Mark disappearing into a crevasse (on purpose)

Vicki heading back up

You may remember my midwinter present was a patchwork wall hanging
depicting the view out from a crevasse. Turns out it was pretty accurate.

Me trying to look relaxed. Photo from Vicki.

Day 3 brought with it lousy contrast so we weren't able to go out, instead content to sit in the tent reading, eating and dozing, just like a holiday back home really. When field parties go out on trips like these there are always daily pre-arranged times for radio contact with base to ensure everyone is safe and well and catch up on any news and gossip. On this occasion there was an event going on in the UK to mark the 50th Anniversary of the building of the first Halley base, so there was a big posh dinner going on back at base with a video link up to the UK to let all the old FIDs who've been down here before say hello, reminisce, and tell us all how it was much harder in their day. We contented ourselves with vodka and cards.

Day 4 had better weather so we decided to go and explore the Rumples, which had been sitting there looking invitingly interesting for a couple of days. We found a route in and walked up to the aptly named High Point from where we could see Halley in the distance. I don't think it was actually that high at all but when you're used to a complete lack of geographical features you take what you can get. We then headed further out towards the coast, seeing some incredible formations in the ice and peering in to a couple more crevasses. All the walking on the ice shelf is done as an alpine four, with all of us attached to the same rope, again so that if one person falls down a hole the others can haul them out. Luckily we didn't have to test this theory, but as you walk you are always looking around trying to see features in the snow which might indicate the presence of a crevasse underneath. Anytime your footsteps start to sound unusually hollow you wonder if it would have been a good idea not to have that extra bit of chocolate for breakfast. We explored another crevasse on the way back. This time my prussic device, which is supposed to act as a sort of handbrake while abseiling, decided not to be very effective, so I had a slightly nervy time changing over to jumars but managed to get out unscathed.

Mark and Vicki at High Point

Simon and Vicki

Me doing my invisible man impression

Sledge Happy looking gnarly. Photo from Simon

The plan for Day5 was to head out in the opposite direction and explore some larger cracks in the ice with a view to abseiling down to the sea ice and having a wander about. We walked quite a way, investigating a few potential abseil points before Simon found one he was happy with. Unfortunately on the way down I was so busy concentrating on my prussic, hoping it would work this time, that I managed to get my abseil device caught on the cornice at the edge of the drop, which then flipped over the wrong way trapping the rope and leaving me hanging, unable to go up or own. Luckily for me Mark and Vicki were still at the top so after my vain attempts to extricate myself had failed, they managed with superhuman effort to haul me back up. By this time we'd walked further than anticipated and were all a bit knackered so we decided discretion was the order of the day and headed back to camp.

Me at the beginning of the abseil. Photo from Simon.

Day6 arrived with no contrast in the morning, so we made a plan to break camp and head over to Creek 2 caboose in the afternoon and stay there for the remaining days. Having spent a couple of hours packing up it was a short skidoo ride over to the caboose, during which we had a petrel flying alongside us for a while and then were treated to a very impressive display of the sun complete with sun dogs, a halo, and a circumzenithal arc (I think.....). Setting up at the caboose is much easer and quicker as there are no tents to erect so we were soon settling down to dinner and a book for the evening.

Day7 was my birthday! This will definitely be one to remember, it's not often you get to celebrate a birthday in a place like this. The day started very well as I managed to abseil down to the sea ice without getting anything wrong. We walked along the sea ice for a few kilometres looking in at the various creeks as we passed. It was very strange to think that last December we were in the same place, but on the ship looking for a place to moor up for relief. We found a few leads or cracks in the ice but none of them went down to water so it was obviously very thick. We also met a couple of penguins who had wandered away from the main colony, causing much speculation as to wether they were heading somewhere specific or just looking for open water. Eventually the contrast disappeared again so we headed back up onto the ice shelf and walked back along the top of the cliffs to the caboose. In the evening I was treated to everyone at base singing Happy Birthday to me over the radio, with Kirsty even giving a rendition in Spanish.

Penguins on a search for open water

Sledge Happy on the sea ice

On Day8 we were hoping to go over to Windy caboose and see the main penguin colony, but unfortunately the weather turned against us on the way over so we headed back to Creek2 and spent the afternoon learning to play Backgammon and reading.

We got up on Day9 hoping for an improvement in the weather to get to Windy but it never came so we packed up and headed back to base after lunch for a much needed shower!

All in all a fantastic holiday. It's always nice to get off base for a while, but to have the opportunity to do all these things is one of the real perks of being down here, and it's an incredible privilege to have seen places that very few others have seen.

We got back just in time for the weekend, and on the Saturday Nic cooked a wonderful spread of tapas for my birthday meal, just what was needed after my somewhat dubious attempts as making Pina Coladas in the bar beforehand. I also received what is probably the largest chocolate cake ever created in the Antarctic, but I was very good and shared it with everyone else.

Antarctic birthday cake

The other big news is that we've had our first visitors since March. Much as we all get along very well down here, we were all very excited at the prospect of seeing some new faces, and had been looking forward to the arrival of the BASLER plane for some time. It also heralded the arrival of fresh fruit and vegetables which is something that is definitely missed at the end of winter. After a couple of false starts due to weather, the plane left King George Island at the top of the peninsular at midnight, which meant I was up all night flight following until it arrived here at 5 in the morning. We laid on a cooked breakfast for the 3 Canadian crew and their 3 Russian passengers, who were on their way over to Novo, a Russian base on the Dronning Maud Land coast. The plane is a DC3, which looks a little out of place here when you're used to seeing the little Twin Otters, but they were only here to drop of the freshies and take on fuel, so after a brief tour of the base they were off again. One of the crew got a nasty shock when he came back to the Laws to pick up a coat he'd left behind, only to find 6 of us in the kitchen staring at the fresh veg and giggling insanely to ourselves. I never thought lettuce would have that effect on me.

Green things!

DC3 refuelling at the skiway

Now that the excitement of the first plane is over we start gearing up for the coming summer season and the influx of people in December. Meanwhile I've got another week of nights starting tomorrow so it's back to baking and cleaning for me.

Daytime activities

Things have been relatively quiet the last few weeks, which is a poor excuse for not having written anything for ages but it's the best I could come up with. My week of nights went pretty well. It's a bit strange getting up and having a normal dinner for breakfast but I coped with the hardship well enough! I managed to remember how to make bread, and even branched out into croissants, doughuts and selkirk bannock, most of which turned out OK. By the time I came off nights again we were on to normal length days, and now the eternal dark of winter seems like a distant memory. Already the sun is up before I am (not a difficult task I'll grant you) and we have daylight into the early evening. The Met team are predicting 24hr daylight will be back with us around the beginning of November.

As a result many more outdoor pursuits are now back on the agenda. One new hobby which seems to have attracted a few people is running. Some fool, I can't remember who, suggested we do a Halley Half Marathon. Outside. In the snow. In temperatures around -20. I think the initial misplaced enthusiasm has now died down a bit and we may be aiming for a 10k run. I won't use the word race as most of us will be concentrating on finishing at all, never mind where we are in relation to everyone else. Handily 10k is roughly the distance from Creek 2 back to Halley so we have a ready made course. In preparation the base is now treated to the sight of a handful of people slogging round the perimeter when the weather permits. Luckily (?) for us Liz our chippie is an accomplished triathlete and is relishing the opportunity to train us all in the joys of distance running. It certainly feels very strange going outdoors in just thermals and jogging gear rather than boots, overalls and huge jackets but, and I never thought I'd say this, it's actually quite enjoyable in a perverse kind of way, and you get to feel all smug and self righteous, until your leg muscles start screaming and you decide to have double helpings of dinner to make up for it. All this running, and the occasional ski for variety, doesn't seem to have made much difference at our fortnightly weigh-in though, in fact we're currently at our collective heaviest since the start of winter.

In a bid to counteract all that healthy exercise we decided to have a pub crawl. We've all been going to the same bar for about 9 months now so a change was called for and we had a tour of the CASLab, Simpson platform, the newly erected Weather Haven, and Piggott before ending back at the Laws for chips. The only difficulty was the weather haven as it's not heated so drinks started freezing in the glass and dancing was required in order to keep warm. The weather haven is actually a garage for Halley's very own zepellin. The Met team have a Blimp which is used to take instruments up into the air to measure ozone levels. So far they've made about 3 flights which have all been pretty successful.

The coldest pub in the world?

The Met team launch the blimp

The increased light means more outdoor work as well. Fuelling is one of our biggest concerns down here. Our power comes from generators, which obviously need fuel to run, and if they were to stop things would very quickly become uncomfortable. Our fuel is stored in large bulk tanks, or in drums, stored at various points around base. From there it is transferred to the flubbers, which are down in the tunnels. These look like giant water balloons and act as the fuel tanks for the generators. The transfer of fuel from storage to the flubbers needs fairly good weather as it could be a hazardous process, so when the opportunity presented itself Bob asked me to give him a hand. This involved hooking a dozer up to a sledge with a transit tank, driving out to the bulk tanks to transfer fuel to the transit tank, then over to the tunnel entrance to pump it down to the flubbers. We did two trips and transferred about 10,000 litres which should keep us going for a while.

I've also managed to get off base for a while helping Simon with some GPS work. As the ice shelf we live on is constantly moving we place GPS units at one or two spots to monitor the speed and direction of ice flow. Simon and I spent a day out setting up a couple of units which was a good chance to get out and see some new scenery. We also have strain loggers which are placed over cracks in the ice to determine if they are closing up or getting wider.

GPS transmitter, with a weather station behind

The base is a little quieter now as winter trips have started. This is our chance for a holiday when Simon takes us out in groups of 4 for 10 days to go camping up at the Rumples, or spend more time out on the sea ice exploring the cliffs and crevasses. The first group left last week, unfortunately the weather hasn't been very kind to them so far but hopefully they'll get to do some exploring over the next couple of days.

Off to see the neighbours

The main theme of the last few weeks has been penguins, as this is the time of year when we get to go down and visit the local colony. This involves a short snocat ride to Windy Creek, one of our local holiday spots, then a walk to the edge of the ice shelf before abseiling down to the sea ice. Initially, however, I was worried that there wouldn't be any trips at all. Simon and Andy went down first to check out the condition of the abseil point and the sea ice to ensure it would be safe for everyone else. Protocol dictates that whenever anyone goes down to the sea ice they radio the base to inform us that they're going down, and to get the latest weather information. Simon and Andy radioed to say that they were heading down, so we got on with our day and waited for them to call in to confirm that they were back up. And we waited. And we waited. And people started checking watches, and looking keenly at the temperature and wind speed monitors. And after it got to a few hours after their scheduled call time, and we were just on the verge of setting in motion our Search and Rescue procedures, we happily spotted skidoo headlights on the horizon. As it turns out they had a run of bad luck with radio batteries, which seem to last no time at all in the cold down here, and of course had been perfectly fine all day, but it served to remind us just how dependent we are upon each other down here, and just how quickly things could all go horribly wrong.

A couple of days after those initial checks I got the opportunity to go on a penguin trip. This involved a fairly early start to pack bags, make a packed lunch, and load a sledge with spare clothing, tents, camping gear, and enough food to feed several armies in case we found ourselves trapped by the weather for any length of time. With seven of us packed rather cosily into a snocat we headed off to Windy. On arrival we got ourselves togged up in climbing harnesses, attached to which were all manner of clips, karabiners, jumar devices, ropes and assorted jangly things.

Everything you need for a day out at the seaside

Having doubled our bodyweight with equipment we then roped up for the walk to the cliff edge. There is a small risk of people disappearing down crevasses when walking close to the edge of the ice shelf, so we travelled in two groups, attached to each other by rope. The abseil down to the sea ice wasn't as bad as I had feared as the snow being blown off the ice shelf had formed a ramp down to the bottom so we were effectively just walking backwards down a slope.

Brian prepares to abseil down to the sea ice

Simon pointed out various features and potential dangers of the sea ice on the walk over to the colony, and it was very strange to think that just a metre or so below our feet was the icy cold water of the Weddell Sea. We'd seen the penguin colony as a black blob in the distance when we abseiled down, but now up close we could see there were several thousand birds all huddled together in a group. At first they seemed determined to ignore us, but once we'd settled down and sat still for a while some of them came over to check out the visitors. The best tactic for getting close to a penguin seems to be to lie still and let them come to you, as any movement on our part soon had them scurrying back to the safety of the group. On this occasion all the penguins were males, dutifully looking after their eggs as the females were all away feeding, so they moved around quite slowly, trying not to dislodge the egg balanced precariously on their feet. We've probably all seen penguins at the zoo, splashing about in a pool or behind glass in a temperature controlled environment, but to see so many of them this close in their natural habitat was like being on a nature documentary, but without the annoying voice-over. I think if penguins ever write an encyclopaedia the entry for humans will definitely make mention of their one small eye and one really big strangely shaped eye, the easiest way to tell them apart being if their big eye is labelled Canon or Nikon.

The penguin skyline

They seemed unimpressed with the new friend I brought for them

"I wonder if it's edible?"

The snow blows off the ice shelf on the sea ice forming interesting shapes

After about an hour and several thousand photos (the joys of digital photography) with the penguins we headed back across the sea ice for the climb back up to the top. This proved rather trickier than the descent even with the aid of the rope, the main problem being that as soon as you kicked a foot hold in the snow and tried to haul yourself up the snow just crumbled away beneath you, sending you slithering back down. Eventually we all managed to get back up and headed back to the snocat for the trip home. All in all it was a fantastic day, not in the sense that anything particularly dramatic happened, but just the chance to get off base for a while, see some scenery, and see some wildlife other than the 15 people you live with.

I've since been on a second trip down to see the colony, the main difference on the second occasion being that some chicks had hatched and could be seen poking their heads out from under parents brood pouches.

The advance guard were sent to meet us on the second trip.

A baby chick pokes his head out for a look

"What do you think of it so far?"

"You ain't seen me. Roight?"

Me and some new friends

The other big event of late has been the return of the sun. You may remember that Liz, as oldest member on base, had the privilege of lowering our Union Flag when the sun disappeared over the horizon back at the end of April, so Kirsty as youngest person got to raise the new one for sunup. Unfortunately it was rather cloudy on the 10th so we didn't actually see the sun until the following day, the top of the disc just peeping over the horizon to the north, but already we seem to have much more light throughout the day. You get used to the seasons changing quite slowly back at home but here it seems a very quick transition from 24 hour daylight to 24 hour darkness and back again.

Kirsty raises the new flag over the Laws building.

First glimpse of the sun over the horizon

With the increased light comes the opportunity to get all those outdoor jobs done that are impractical during the weeks of darkness. We've been out raising the drum lines which mark our perimeter boundary and show the way to the cabooses on the coast, I've been attempting to reattach an HF aerial which got broken in the high winds, and sledges which have been slowly getting buried in the snow have been coaxed in to a new position via the application of a bulldozer and winch. One of the harder sledges to shift was the Halley 6 sledge, which was brought down over the summer to test the design for the new Halley base due to replace this one in the next couple of years. The last attempt to move it resulted in a snapped winch cable, so this time we employed two dozers, 5 shovel wielding people and an entire afternoon which eventually saw it give in and slide grudgingly a few feet forward.

A very buried sledge

Finally persuaded to move

The kiting fanatics have also seized the opportunity to get out again when the contrast is good, and a few of us have been out skiing as well. On the indoor entertainment front the Halley band is coming on in leaps and bounds, we now have quite a few songs in our repertoire, despite limited equipment resources.

Improvised drum kit

We've also had another couple of birthdays. Bob our generator mechanic turned 40, which was celebrated with cake and champagne, and a weekend party where everyone had to come as a famous person called Bob. As usual some excellent costumes, the highlight for me being the newly formed Halley bobsleigh team. Kirsty turned 22 as well, so Vicki made an enormous pyramid of fairy cakes and candles, most of which disappeared very quickly.

L-R: Bob Holness, Robert Plant, Bobby Ewing, Blackadder Bob, Bob Marley, Bob the Builder, Bobby Charlton, Bob Marley II, someone who's been robbed, Bob a Job boy, Birthday Bob, Chris

Front: Bobsleigh Team

I've just started another week of nights so it's back to nightly weather observations, cleaning and maybe a bit of baking if I'm feeling brave.

Is it a bird, is it a plane......

Sometimes it's good to remind yourself that you're special. With that in mind, we decided to have a Superheroes evening were everyone came as their favourite superhero or villain. As usual there was a great turnout of costumes, ranging from well known characters to the more esoteric, and the completely made up. As I was on gash duty that day my costume was a bit last minute, and some of the more interactive elements didn't get included unfortunately. I won't give away too much about my outfit, suffice to say it's tricky eating a posh dinner at the table when your udder keeps getting in the way......

The Halley Superheroes. Protecting the Antarctic from evil.

On the Monday after that Liz and Vicki decided to make our lives a misery by recovering the pool table. Normally this would be a good thing, and it was well in need of doing, but we'd only just got used to the old cloth. To say it had some eccentricities would be an understatement, but it was always hugely entertaining trying to judge the strength of shot needed to get up the 1 in 3 slope to the bottom corner pocket, and the feeling of satisfaction as you watched your opponents ball settle into a large divot on the table was rarely surpassed. Now of course we are all having to relearn our game and it's not easy. Well that's my excuse for my recent appalling form and I'm sticking to it.

Next month will hopefully see us going out to Windy Creek to visit the local penguin colony. As a prelude to that we have been brushing up on our rope skills, so we've all had a session with Simon using a z-pulley system to rescue each other from the treacherous crevasses that lurk in the lounge, and then another one abseiling off the Simpson platform and jumaring back up again. Having had to be lowered down by Simon twice due to rope entanglements I finally managed a proper descent, and he assured me that the total cock up on the first two attempts wasn't entirely my fault. Good to know........ Simon also gave us a talk on the perils of sea-ice as this is what we'll be walking on when we go down to see our black and white friends. I don't think I'll have a career with a mountain rescue team anytime soon but hopefully I''ll remember enough to keep myself and whoever I'm attached to out of trouble.

Alex hanging around under the Simpson building

Last Thursday was Mark's birthday so we've had a good excuse for some celebrations. Vicki made him an excellent cake in the shape of a guitar, complete with strings. (After much mucking about with strawberry shoelaces it was decided that piping the strings on with icing was by far the simplest method.) Then on the Saturday Mark invited us all to a very exclusive night club in his workshop, which was decked out complete with lights, sound system, multimedia wall displays, and even a microphone for karaoke moments!

The weather has been fairly consistently cold lately, which is not a problem as we're all well wrapped up, and it also opens up new possibilities, such as frozen hair sculptures. Most of us don't really have enough but Kirsty and Vicki ventured out onto the platform, and after dangling wet hair upside down for a while created some impressively wild hairstyles, with Kirsty managing the best impression of someone being electrocuted.

Vicki goes for the windswept look

Kirsty after seeing her bar bill

On the work front, there's been more catenary and balun raising on various masts and aerials, preparation of field radios for the upcoming trips, and some anti-virus niggles to sort out. A few of us have also been in the garage giving Anto a hand servicing a snocat, so hopefully it won't break down on the way to Windy.

"Looks like your left hand throggle mulch flange is a bit worn"

A bit bigger than the one on the Scim

Hopefully my next update will include some shots of the local wildlife. In the meantime a couple of pictures of the Laws looking dramatic against the night sky.