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10th jan 2008
update : hello, and happy new year to all who
read...!
i have once again been out at sky blu, flying
over the west antarctic ice-sheet multiple times
helping to pull out a finished field party, and on
the ronne ice-shelf upgrading an automatic weather
station. i got back last night and haven't had
any time to spend on computers recently.
also just before that, i had a most excellently
splendid half-day on lagoon island and have some
photos from there. some are even naturally
coloured green....!
update when time and tiredness allow.
cheers, rob
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2
4 t h . d e c . 2 0 0 7
c h r i s t m a
s i n a n t a r c t i c a
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how i imagine
the gateway to antarctica... not
really! but there is an island near
here called dismal island - this is an
artist's impression of how it probably looks
to the shipwrecked mariner - superhuman even
to survive this long... |
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a week ago i
went on an automatic weather station upgrading
trip to butler island on the far (east) side
of the peninsula - an amazing flight over from
rothera with plenty of spectacular mountainous
scenery and the usual slowly crashing ice (my
growing familiarity with this most unusual of
landscapes reminded of some lyrics from nick
cave:
i was
just a boy when i sat down and watched
the news on TV
i
saw some ordinary slaughter, i saw some
routine atrocity;
... unrelated
to my sentiments felt upon an effortless
crossing of the antarctic peninsula, but no
harm in re-routing my train of thought along
those twin rails... it was a pretty
successful trip, although a little bit scary
from my point of view - my first trip out to
work on one of these stations without any
higher power with me! we have 5 of these
around the peninsula and they transmit data
via the white antenna on the horizontal bar,
to polar orbiting NOAA satellites which then
dump it back down to earth at an appropriate
moment so that it can be viewed back at
cambridge and rothera. |
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some
chinstrap penguins, not that common in these
here parts were kind enough to pose for me
on a cracking (pun intended, but
terrible. sorry) iceberg exhibiting
the stunning hues of blues that strike you
as more than just a colour. i didn't
see the little flightless chaps getting onto
this particular berg, but it's got to be
impressive - they just leap out and somehow
know how to land it. or maybe there's
a staircase at the back. |
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anyway, enough
of the hyperbolic type... i would like
to wish everyone that reads these pages an
immensely...
...cheerful
christmas
and a
most splendidly
fantastic
yet also 100% genuine
new
year...!!
much love to
family and friends, on the eve of my second
(of three) christmas in this continent.
i think of you often.
to finish, a
couple of slightly silly (fossil bluff hut)
and vaguely informative and hopefully
interesting (the matrix) video clips from
recent locations wot i have found myself
in. its a strange life...
fossil
bluff hut
(cutting room floor edit)
the
matrix
(from the "cold air makes you sniff
a lot" sessions)
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6
t h . d e c . 2 0 0 7
w h e r
e h a v e i b e
e n f o r t h e
l a s t 3 w e e k s ?
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good
question. i'll start with some pics,
followed by a few words and some video clips
- i haven't been very prolific in my
photo-taking during the last few weeks, but
here are some images anyway...
basically after opening up fossil bluff i
was sent out there again for 10 days, then
upon returning was very soon sent to sky blu
for 2 weeks, arriving back last friday... WORDS
SOON...! EDIT - WORDS DONE NOW....VIDEOS
SOON!! and maybe a reduction in
exclamation mark usage...! |
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| adelaide
island - the eastern edge of the
wormald ice piedmont (direct translation i'm
guessing is foot hill, proper translation:
something lying at or formed at the base of
a mountain range...) from the twin otter
taking me to fossil bluff for stay number 2,
which lasted for 10 days. I took very
few photos in these days, so apologise for
the dearth of photographic material pulled
from that time - i guess that it is a
natural reaction to increasing familiarity -
it is the perception of the exceptional
which pulls ones hand into the camera
bag...!
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| a picture
taken from the skiway near rothera, after we
had to land due to "technical
difficulties" in the air. it was
good because, being in no danger but still
being forced to land soon, we got to land at
the skiway which entails circling around
island, a trip during which i took the
picture below from the co-pilot seat.
the plane in the air there is a canadian
twin otter which was one of a few canadian
otters which stayed at rothera for a little
while en route to the
pole. |
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above pic shows some amazing cloudal (?!)
structures over adelaide island. most
of the cloud is high ice crystal cloud -
various types of cirrus, and make me think
of hoar frost being chanelled during
formation via minute surface scratches on
glass. it's also another interesting
take on the scene which is by now so
familiar, and which i have viewed in almost
the entire spectrum of moods (theirs and
mine)! |
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photographic record of the last 2 weeks, like
the fossil record of evolution by natural
selection, has large gaps in it. but do
not think for a moment, readers, that the
intervening time did not occur, or that these
photos were placed on this blog by a god to
test the devotion of the believer - for i was
merely lazy with my lens, and we now jump
hopelessly in time, from fossil bluff to sky
blu. i was sent here after another few
days at rothera, in order to staff our most
strategically important depot and
runway. it is situated towards the base
of the antarctic peninsula, at 75 degrees
south, and is of primary importance for deep
field operations and science. it is
sited where it is, (and called what it is
called) because the conditions there are such
that there are large expanses of dense blue
ice (like that on an artificial ice-rink)
which is almost flat, and if cleared of the
smallish depths of snow that accumulate there
can serve as a runway accessible by the
grandfather of the BAS aeroplane fleet, the
Dash-7. so there is a largish fuel depot
there (approx 80 x 205 litre barrels) of AVTUR
(aviation turbine fuel - basically
high-octane, pure kerosene) for plane use, as
well as petrol for machines, and kerosene (or
paraffin) for cooking. it is also a
general dumping ground ("transition
depot") for all sorts of science gear
like ice core drills, heat exchangers,
generators, large orange hydraulic hose reels
etc etc.... all the obvious stuff and
field gear like sledges and rations and radios
and so on.... |
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is the starting point for one of the many
science field projects out this summer -
myself and nico (pilot) headed to this point
which is near the almost unvisited hudson
mountains to take them a plane load of gear
for their geologically based, glaciologically
biased trip. although you can't see any
mountains in the pic, they are just out of the
left of the shot, but "mountains" is
a very long word for the largish undulations
that we saw there. but there is visible
rock, and that is not to be sniffed at in a
land where you can easily fly for a thousand
miles and encounter nothing topographicall
interesting except flatness and whiteness
(although to be fair, absolutely every
shade of white is catered for, excepting one
whitish shade of pale which left a few decades
ago to become the name of a horrible song by
the hilariously named procol harum).
that was a very nice co-pilot flight, to an
excitingly remote part of the world - and also
we got to stay at another deep-field depot,
matrix, that evening because it was too far to
fly all the way back north and east to sky blu
that night, and without refuelling. i'll
post some video from matrix at the bottom of
this post... |
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spent a large part of my time at sky blu with
andy webb (mechanic) and ian mcnab (GA) - i
enjoyed it so much more than last year when it
was very busy, the folks were different, and
constantly in flux, and there wasn't
sufficient time to establish a routine which
is very important when you live in a place
like sky blu in a tent or a fibreglass dome
(the "melon hut", as pictured
above). here andy is defying my attempts
to take a nice crisp photo by bouncing up and
down between the roof and the bench...
in the picture is half of the melon hut, out
main cooking, communications and living area
for the 2 weeks. |
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| one
of the most important jobs at sky blu, as
well as refuelling aircraft, handling cargo
and maintaining fuel depots, is attempting
to keep the 900m x 50m runway clear of
snow. as you can probably imagine,
this near impossible task is a never ending
struggle against the soul of the antarctic -
but everyone does their best armed with
shovels, a pedestrian snowblower ("the
fuji"), and this
"sit-in-a-cab" snowblower, named
the "popemobile" or just the
"pope" because of it's resemblance
the preferred mode of transport of the late
pope john paul. it can be quite a
difficult task, especially at the start of
the season after a winter's accumulation on
the blue ice, but it is possible with time
and sufficiently high winds from the right
direction to take the blown snow far from
the runway surface. above is andy
piloting the pope, which incidentally, is
designed for use on golf courses... not
blowing snow, obviously.
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food of sky blu occasionally spreads out
from "manfood" - the standard
field rations of basic dried meals. in
the above pic, we are about to
"enjoy" some blueberry
"crumble" with blueberry
"ice-cream"! made with dried
blueberries and frozen condensed milk for
the ice-cream, baked in a metal box that
sits on top of a primus stove and
masquerades as an oven. it really was
quite marvellous though! |
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| back
at rothera after a couple of weeks out, i
enjoyed a nice shower and a few beers - we had
some pretty excellent light 2 nights ago as
well, so heres a back-to-base shot to round
off the post. i'll post some video clips
quite soon, and then it should be back to more
regular updates since i should be on station
for a while now... it also means i
might be able to get round to e-mailng some of
you soon as well! cheers for
reading..... rob |
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