Trip to Gatekeeper

Trip to Gatekeeper

We had a couple of trips out to a crevasse near here called Gatekeeper recently. It was a chance to get people off base to go and do something, as well as getting in some more training for the SAR (search and rescue) team, of which I am a part. I went out on one of the trips last weekend and took some pretty rubbish photos before my battery died, but they at least give you a little idea of what we were up to. The contrast that day was quite poor, which didn’t help. I did manage to grab my other camera out to catch the spectacular sunset we were fortunate to be driving back to base under though. Amazing!

Folk Night

Folk Night

We had a great open mic type night here not too long ago. A number of people put their egos on the line and got up and performed and it really was a lot of fun. I got roped into doing a couple of numbers with Pete, our local wintering musical guru. He plays the guitar beautifully and let me ruin it with my totally mediocre uke playing, which I hope I masked successfully with my singing?! I do have recorded footage of these, to be shown to a select few at a later date…perhaps. A scary evening…but a lot of fun! And I also got dragged in to a couple of other acts along the way too. Everybody did really well and it was such a good evening and something we’ll hopefully do a bit more of in the winter…with a slightly smaller audience.

Sunset

We recently had our first sunset since getting here in November. We missed celebrating the first “official” sunset as it was masked by heavy cloud for a few evenings. But we made sure to mark it when we could by going up to upper obs for the best view in the house. Notice Natalie sporting the latest in Antarctic sunset spotting eyewear.

The evenings are now getting longer and it’s pretty much dark for a while at night. The temperatures are slowly dropping and work is winding up here for the summer.  

Winterer’s Training

A couple of weeks ago we, the 2015 winterer’s, had a weekend away from 
base to undergo some training to prepare us for our “winter trips”. Once 
the ship has left with all of the summer folk there is the opportunity 
for us to go out in groups of three (two people and the GA) to explore a 
little over a number of days. This means…Antarctic camping. So the 
training weekend was to give us a taster of how this is done and give us 
practice in practical exercises such as using the Primus stoves and the 
Tilly lamps. We also covered some rope training, crevasse rescue and 
linked skidoo travel training.

We set off to Creek 3 on Friday afternoon and after a brief chat we set 
up our tents. Natalie and I were tenting together – a good thing in case 
we suffer separation anxiety from spending more than a couple of hours 
away from each other! It was a lovely evening, which made it 
straightforward.

Nathalie digging snow blocks/defensive trench (!).

Once the tents were up we were free to cook some dinner, melt water and 
chill out for the rest of the evening. The whole BAS tenting system is 
super comfortable. I will post more on that when we actually go on our 
trips, but it is toasty and cosy in those things, especially at this 
time of year when it is not yet cold (!).

The next day we grabbed a partner and were split in to two groups. Our 
group went with Nick (a GA visiting from Rothera to give us a hand with 
training at the moment) and started with some rope work and general 
crampon/ice axe training. What a day for it!

Creek 3 is where the ship was able to moor this year for “relief”. Just 
weeks ago there were some big vehicles driving back and forth on the sea 
ice off loading all the cargo. You could still see the tracks … heading 
straight to the water now as a lot of the ice has broken up since.

We finished the morning with some abseiling and belaying each other on 
safety ropes.

After some lunch we then headed to the other side of camp to do some 
“fall arrest” and crevasse rescue training. This is for if the partner 
you are roped together with falls into a crevasse – you can stop them 
going further, build an anchor, take the strain off the rope and rig up 
a pulley system with which to haul them out of the crevasse, should they 
not be able to climb out themselves. We had covered this on our field 
course so it was great to be able to put this in to context and to brush 
up on what we had learned (and nearly forgotten) a while ago now!

We took it in turns being the “casualty” at the end of the rope and 
conducted the exercise on a small slope rather than anything more 
severe. Steve wins the prize for most dedicated casualty – giving his 
partner absolutely no assistance as he was being halled up the slope as 
total dead weight, and for a part of it at least, face first.

We also got to have a little walk to admire the view…

Day 2 saw the weather turn a little – the wind picked up a little and it 
was pretty overcast. Some of us were woken in camp by a little visitor…

We then packed up camp and took a little while to sort stuff out and 
decide on what the group wanted to do next. Most of the group wanted to 
head back to base, but three of us stayed behind with Nick to do a bit 
of recreational ice climbing. It also meant we could do our link skidoo 
training on the way back to base afterwards.

It was great to get away from base for a couple of days, especially over 
a weekend (a real treat for a chef). Winter trips will be happening 
soonish as it is already February. The ship is due in at the very end of 
the month and will be leaving somewhere around the first week of March. 
Not long and we’ll be down to 13…

Halley International Airport

We had the two BAS Twin Otters come through last week. They had been through two weeks before picking up and dropping of the Sledge India science field party to a remote spot roughly a two hour flight away. This involves not only taking the 4 man party out there, but also all the kit including skidoos and it took 5 separate flights to do so.  And so last week they were tasked with picking up the guys and relocating them to another area. This took 4 flights (I think) to get them to Halley, where they stayed for the night, and then a further 4 flights the following day to take them out to their field location.

On my day off last week I was able to accompany Natalie to the ski-way - the groomed “runway” just outside the perimeter where any planes coming through land. They also get refuelled here and if they are stopping over they get tied down in case the weather changes.  I had been out with Natalie and John to the ski-way before, but this time the weather was great and I remembered my camera! I love getting out of the kitchen and seeing these things, as I don’t get to do it every day. And I don’t know anything about planes, but the Twin Otters seem pretty cool to me. 

And lastly, some visitors.

General Stuff

I finally got round to taking a few snaps around the base so that people at home can get a more general idea of how things are here. So I don’t want to write too much really.

We had a lovely early Christmas on the 20th. Dinner and everything went well and we decorated the main A module, or Big Red, for a more festive feel. I won’t post a pic of my room (pit room as they are called here) as it’s a huge mess and mum would be ashamed of me. So perhaps that will have to wait! For now, here are a few pics.

Merry Christmas from everyone here at Halley

The view from my bedroom window

Some views from inside.

Picnic bench outside the workshop

And last but not least, here's one to prove to my sisters that I am practicing my ukulele!

Ice climbing and penguins

It’s been over a month since I arrived at Halley now. My day off is usually on a Thursday, which obviously means everybody else is working.  With some bad weather last week it meant that all unessential travel on base was restricted. So it was great when a trip was organised last Sunday and was I offered the day off to make the most of it.  How nice it was to get off base with a bunch of good people for a fantastic day.

We all piled into the snow cat and drove about 2 hours to where the ice shelf meets the sea ice. Al, Will and Mike set up some top ropes off the ice cliff and we were all able to have our first go at some ice climbing. I hadn’t had a go before and had visions of it being nigh on impossible but it was actually really manageable and a whole lot of fun! The weather played along too and the sun came out for a pretty warm and wonderful day. It also gave us another chance to see some penguins, who don’t usually hang out there so much, so it was a real treat.

I will get round to posting some photos of general day to day life at Halley one of these days – I’ll make sure of it. At the moment we are gearing up for “Relief”, which is when the ship (the Ernest Shackelton) gets in with the annual supplies, the rest of the 2015 winterers and some more summer staff. That will push our numbers on base up to 56 I think. During relief it’s a 24 hour work day, so people are on day or night shifts. Another chef is coming in for the summer so he’ll be on nights first, and then we’ll work out a schedule so we can hopefully get a solid couple of days off. It will be great to have somebody else in the kitchen and he is very excited for his first trip south too. The ship left Cape Town the other day so hopefully they are having a smooth a journey as possible!!

We have our Christmas celebration on the 20^th, to squeeze it in before Relief. So John is in the kitchen today making some Christmas cake, and we’ll work together on the day to get dinner sorted  and make it as nice as possible for everybody.

Anyway, I’ll leave it there for now. As I said I will post again soon with some inside photos of more “normal” life here in Antarctica.  Until then, bye for now.