teeks

I spent over £900 on camera equipment, and I’ve yet to use the bloody things on base.  I used my canon everyday when on the ship and visiting the islands, and yet I’ve been on base for 29 days, and I havent even taken it out of the case.

I could say I’m too busy, but that isnt the truth.  I just dont want to be lumbered with a camera whenever I go outside, it’s just too awkward.  I ski, kite and skidoo a lot when outside and I dont want to miss out on anything because I’m carrying my camera – I know its silly but I really should take a slow day and take some photos.  After all, the views are truly astonishing, and the light in the evenings must be seen to be believed.

I went kitting last night with Just a Mech, and I’ve nailed the technique.  The wind was no longer in charge, and I could decide where to go and at which speed … and I usually opted for the ‘Jesus Christ I’m going fast, if I fall I’m dead’ option.  I even managed a few jumps, but I wasnt anywhere near the 20ft+ jumps Mat was landing, I was lucky to get a few feet (all intentional too).

Apart from the kitting, the new winterers were trained in Antarctic Martial Arts, namely lighting a Primus stove without exploding anything, lighting a Tilly lamp without exploding anything, and pitching a tent without exploding anything.  After a few tentative efforts, and without blowing anything up, we pitched our tents, lit our lamps and cooked our first meals while out in the field (about 500m from the base … Proper Antarctic Heroes stuff).

Sune, our intrepid Field GA (general assistant … I dont see whats general about it, he owns Antarctica as far as I’m concerned) taught us well, and we were all sitting in Rich + James’ home for the evening eating a banquet fit for the King of Tent.  Manfood is simialr to Pot Noodle, only tasty and you only need add boiling water, wait 5 minutes and they’re ready to eat.  One word of warning, dont taste anything Tamsin’s spiced up with herbs … it’ll end up tasting of … herbs, and nothing else, especially not of vegetable bolognese.  Just herbs and only herbs.

In traditional Antarctic erm, tradition, we all wanted to play a game.  Seeing as Tamsin brought a the questions to Trivial Pursuit (not the game … only the questions … I dunno) we built a small board out of the boxes and bags inside the tent, chose the relevant item that best represented our personalities and we started – taking turns answering questions, with a correct answer propelling the Wooden Spoon, The Toilet Roll, The Empty Box and the Bottle of Mouthwash towards the tent entrance, and glory.  The Wooden Spoon won, and everyone else was still on the second step.

Apart from that, it’s all been ticking along nicely.  A few people have asked me what my day includes, but I cant answer that yet as I havent had a typical day.  Sometimes I might be on the radio in my office flight following, other days I might be helping somebody with their job, other times I might be installing new kit in the garage or on the Laws’ roof – its all good.

Filed by admin at 6:56 pm under antarctica
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Settled in yet?  Had a busy day? Getting to grips with comms?  Is it supposed to bend in the middle like that?

Just some of the questions I’ve had over the last 14 days.  Apologies for not updating in a while, but I’ve been crazy busy with skijouring, kiting, skiing, BBQs, guitar jamming sessions (I cant play, but I can make a lot of noise), playing pool, drinking, having fun and doing some work.

I was initially disappointed when I was assigned to the radio room (which doubles as my comms office) for relief, the last thing I wanted when arriving in Antarctica was to work in an office for 12 hours a day.  Everyone else was assigned different jobs – see ice drivers, sno-cat drivers, drivers mates, cargo workers – ship and Halley side and a load of others, and I was set to work the 7 days of 24 hour chaos in the radio room … Thankfully, Pat our erstwhile Summer Base Commander, had other ideas, and I was soon lugging boxes up the stairs of the Laws for the first morning … Cheers Pat

After a few hours of carrying 30kg boxes up 30 flights of stairs, I was back in the radio room on flight following duty, as we were using the plane to ferry fresh food to the base (transferring with a sno-cat would result in frozen fresh food).  It was pretty simple, confirm everything the pilot says, give him the weather at the right times and log everything, simple as a piece of cake that had wings, could fly and needed detailed logs of all activity.

The next few days was similar.  Work in the radio room followed by HnD (humping and dumping), mainly food for the Laws.  We started seeing the fuel drums on day four, and we were tasked with SnS (shoving and stacking).  A Challenger would deliver 3 sledges carrying a total of 120 drums, each drum carrying 200 litres of Avtur, weighing a little under 200kgs.  These needed to be stacked, and it was Tamsin and I that did most of the day shifts stacking.  We had Ant and Brian hooking the drums to the crane 6 at a time, Lance operating the crane and TeamStack doing the hard work on the deck, pushing, shoving and levering these bastard drums into place, 12 drums down, 6 across and in 3 layers.  I was the banks man, so I was waving my arms around a lot, trying to get the drums into place as best as I could, despite my expert direction, virtually every delivery needed shoving with a shovel, and not one finger was lost for the 1214 drums that were delivered …

Relief took 8 days, and the 12 hour shifts of manual labour took its toll, I was covered in bruises.  My birthday coincided with the end of relief, so my first day off was spent on a snowboard behind a skidoo.  Skijouring, as its called (but probably not spelt) is great fun, but really harsh on the arm used to grip onto the tow bar.  After a few runs in poor light and bumpy snow, we all retired to the bar, where 30 or so people were mulling around drinking, playing pool and relaxing in general.  James was desperately trying to get me to look out of the window, and seeing as the lights were dimmed I took my cue to look at the fascinating skidoo line just outside the window, as my birthday cake was carried in …  I turned around to a cake with ‘Penblwydd Hapys’ written above a red dragon, and the spelling mistake made it even better – thanks to Issy, Ant and Nix.

The rest of my time so far has been spent on hand over with Dave, the current comms manager.  I’ve learnt about the radios, the antennae masts, the hand-helds, the iridium sat phones, the network, the satellite systems and a load of other commie stuff – all very exciting.

I even managed to take my kite out yesterday, and my initial worries of a face plant within seconds of being airborne soon vanished when I actually felt the thing in my hands.  A 9.5m kite in the air looks massive, and the 9knot wind we had keeping it in the air was a little weak for Just-a-Mech to kiteboard successfully, he was on his arse more often than not.

Other times I’ve sat in my office playing my guitar, and the chords are slowly but surely starting to sound decent.  I dont have any pictures sorry, I havent taken my camera with me anywhere.  I’ll get a video tour of my pit room, my office and the main platform over the next few days…

Filed by admin at 4:44 pm under antarctica
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I think its fair to say that a 36 day commute to work sucks.

Sitting on the ship, seeing everyone else either busy at work or already on base was torture. I was stuck in the ship as I had to wait for the first night shift sno-cat to drop me off at the half-way caboose to fix a VHF repeater. I waited patiently, moved my 3 heavy bags from my room to the cargo hold, then from the cargo hold back to my room, then from my room back to the cargo hold, and then to the cages, and then back up to the deck … where Gaz, Paul and Rob were kind enough to help carry them to the ski-way, where our waiting Twin Otter idled, destined for Halley.

I found it all very familiar, seeing my bags leave before me – it was just like Gatwick (I half expected my bags to arrive in Rothera in 4 days). I watched the plane taxi around the apron, and all of a sudden it was suddenly in the air … these things can take off in 80 metres with a decent head wind – and we had plenty of that. I waited around for a few more hours, which felt like days, until Cuz, our intrepid coordinator organised a few sno-cats to take me and Terry to the caboose (and to pick up a few empty sleds … they werent our taxis or owt) and meet up with a sno-cat from Halley to take us the rest of the way.

The halfway caboose is a shed, located funnily enough, half way (ingenious naming system) between the N9 site (ships mooring location) and Halley. The distance between base and ship is 65km, so using a bit of clever maths, I can deduce that the caboose is approx 35kms from the ship, and 25.634kms from Halley. The journey takes 12 mins in a plane, 5 hours in a sno-cat and if you’re daft enough, a few days on foot.

I eventually left the ship at 8pm, and made excellent time thanks to Just a Mech Mat at the steering wheel, arriving at the caboose at 9:50ish, way ahead of the estimated 2.5 hours. The journey wasnt bad, slightly bumpy with the odd jerk, but the whole OMG IM HERE factor meant I was high on adrenaline. We were expecting to see at least one sno-cat from Halley at the caboose before we arrived, but alas, my taxi had broken down at base. Anyways, being typical hard working Brits, we all piled out of our respective sno-cats and started immediately, by sticking the kettle on and having a brew. After a good cup of coffee, Terry attached the cables and whatnot to the repeater, and I went about testing it by contacting the ship with a hand held VHF. Result! I could hear the ship transmitting. The ship however couldnt hear me, so it wasnt all peachy … that problem should keep me busy over the summer.

We waited around for a few hours before the ship contacted me again; we had a brand new Challenger2 on its way and I could grab a lift in that. Martin pulled up, towing 3 sleds (a typical sno-cat pulls one) driving away at 20kms … we made Halley in just over hour and a half – these new Challengers will make a huge difference to relief, they can drag three sleds to Halley in a little over three hours, pretty swish when sno-cats take 5 hours to drag one. They’ll be a big boost to the new Halley6 build when it starts after relief.

I was shown around the Laws building (big one on legs), which holds the main living quarters for winterers, the bar, a few workshops, the comms equipment etc. I was pretty exhausted by now, and I retired to my pit room at around 2:30am, set to awake at 6:30 and start my first day of work …

Filed by admin at 4:39 pm under antarctica
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