Flag

Today is the shortest day, from this point on we should start getting more light and sometime soon the sun should re-appear from its hiding place behind the mountains. We've not experienced total darkness but the days have become pretty short with only 2-3 hours of dusky daylight.

Traditionally the eldest person on base lowers the old flag and the youngest raises the new one.

Richard (the electrician) lowering the flag
Matt (the electronic engineer) raising the new flag

The photos were taken around 1pm local so you get some kind of idea of the amount of light we have.

Midwinters Day

The Rothera Wintering Team

Midwinters Day started with Mike the base commander bringing everyone breakfast in bed. He insisted on doing it wearing his favourite pink dress and blonde wig which he seems to find an excuse to wear at every fancy dress party.

A disturbing image of our BC

A few of us took a walk around Rothera point and were greeted by a lone Adelie penguin which decided to follow us for a while, and a host of furs seals who were as grumpy as ever.

The afternoon gave way to more traditions - a screening of 'The Thing' (a horror movie set in Antarctica) followed by the swapping of midwinter presents. In days gone by before internet and phones were so freely available FIDs spent many hours / weeks (usually in the in the chippy shop -carpenter's work shop) crafting a winter present to be given to another winterer. These days it is good to see that people still put a lot of time and effort into creating special and unusual gifts. Presents are allocated by drawing names from a hat. This year gifts ranged from wine bottle holders, lamps and framed photos to a balance board, pin hole camera and wooden bowls. I made a penguin-shaped wine bottle holder from steel and received a wooden puzzle in a box which I've still not solved, Matt (it's creator) said he'd give me the solution before I leave in 2009 if I haven't solved it by then!

Cyril our wonderful french chef did not disappoint us, having spent all day in the kitchen, assisted throughout the day by pretty much everyone else on base, created an amazing feast including a whole suckling pig which he'd acquired from one of the ships in the summer. After dinner we were visited by 'santa' and everyone received a shoebox full of gifts from family and friends back home, these had been sent down in the summer and were a complete surprise to most people. After dinner we retired to the bar and much fun was had with the modelling balloons both Tris and I had been given in our parcels.

Cyril showing Tris how to stuff a pig & The finished article complete with the last apple on base

Midwinters Week Begins...

Midwinter is a time for celebration in the Antarctic as it marks the point when the sun starts to return and the days will get longer. Here at Rothera we don't get complete darkness, we're enjoying 3-4hrs of dusky daylight at the moment, but we haven't seen the sun for over a month.
We have the pleasure of a week off for Midwinter which this year was full of traditional and not-so-traditional Rothera Rituals. The week kicked off with a night spent in snow holes at Vals on Friday night, which was surprisingly warm and comfortable. Monday heralded the traditional Winter Olympics-this year's events included abseiling off the tower, skidoo trials, bog-chisel (wooden pole with a metal spike on the end used for chipping through ice) javelin, muckluck (boots) throwing and snow-sculpture.

It's a whale (obviously!)

Steve hurling a muckluck

The evenings entertainment was another age-old tradition, the midwinter pub crawl. Groups of people had spent hours (some days) creating masterpieces of unusual drinking establishments. It all started in the electrician's workshop with light displays and chilled beers, then on to Tris and Matt's snowcave bar which was truly amazing. The GAs set up the 'bungee bar' where we got to throw ourselves at our favourite beverages. This was followed by 'O'Bonners' Irish bar in the Bonner Lab and The Drift Inn (aka Boatshed). Then the long walk back up the hill to an array of interesting 'drips' at doc's surgery and much needed hotdogs in Cyril's kitchen. The final call was a coffee bar in Rob's office. All in all a fantastic evening with more than the average number of sore heads in the morning.

Tris & Matt inside their snow hole-bar

Kelvin diving for his next beverage at the Bungee Bar

Halloween?

Just another Saturday night at Rothera

Since Midwinter (21st July) is a big celebration in Antarctica it is sometimes looked upon as our Christmas (as we don't have time in the summer to have the Christmas week off). Lizzy decided that if July is Christmas time then May should be the time to have a Halloween party, so we did. There were some sterling costume efforts as usual, some more scary than others, for example winter base commander Mike turning up in a little pink dress and blonde wig....again.

Pancake Diving in Hangar Cove

At this time of year the presence of ice can be problematic for diving and getting out and about on the water, it's often a case of too much ice for diving but not enough ice to travel on foot or skidoo. Hangar Cove (one of our regular dive sites, near the Hangar) was full of pancake ice (when the surface starts to freeze it forms 'pancakes' of slushy ice) which is okay for boating and diving but large amounts of ice around the point made access tricky, so we decided to move the Nodwell over to Hangar Cove from it's usual location at the Wharf and launch our small RIB Nimrod directly into Hangar Cove.

Pancake ice in Hangar Cove

Launching Nimrod with the Nodwell

Kelvin and I spent 35 minutes at -1.5 degrees C, successfully completing the task of photographing 12 "settlement plates" (plastic plates which have been in situ for 4 years to see which marine organisms will settle and grow on them). It was amazing surfacing through the loosely-formed pancake ice - pieces of soft ice broke off and sank down past us like snow. As we de-kitted we realised that a layer of ice had formed on our 1st stages.

Ice on the dive kit which formed during the dive

Thanks to Jim (boatman) for the photos :o)

Winter Trip

Nansen Sledge and Pyramid Tent

One of the best things about Wintering at Rothera has to be the winter trips, everyone gets 2 weeks off base one at the beginning and end of winter. You and a GA (field assistant / guide) get to spend a week camping / climbing / snowboarding / skiing. Liz and I set off on in relative darkness at 10am, our skidoos roped together and towing sledges packed with enough food and gear to keep us going for a month - it sounds over the top but if the weather turns you really can be stuck in your tent for days or weeks on end, plus you have to have almost double the amount in case one sledge falls into a crevasse! We set up camp near Trident, about 10km North of Rothera. Our original intentions were to aim for an abandoned Chilean base (Carvajal) on the far side of Adelaide Island but poor weather and short days meant we'd get more done if we stayed closer to base. Roger and Matt joined us and once tents were up we skidooed over to the recently named 'Hangover Buttress' on Trident and did a brilliant ice climb up one of the gullys. The next day Liz and I swapped gullys with Rog and Matt and enjoyed another excellent climb.

Hangover Buttress & Rog checking how wide the crevasse is

Ice climbing on Hangover Buttress

The next 2 days were windy with poor contrast so we were confined to the campsite. We made use of our time by creating a stunning snow hole and having fun with long exposures and torches in the evening....

The temperature stayed around -10 to -18 all week hence the tents got pretty chilly once the primus stove and tilley lamps were off. Frost formed around the top of your sleeping bag overnight and even the port began to freeze. The pyramid tents, tilley lamps and stoves are pretty much identical to ones that have been used since the days of Shackleton and Scott proving they are ideal for the job. Our sleeping 'systems' are however much more advanced and consist a wooden board topped with a foam mattress, inflatable 'Thermarest', a sheepskin, a thick down sleeping bag and fleece liner so once your inside it's pretty warm.

The final day brought good weather which allowed us to rope up and trek up Gwendolyn with our snowboards and skis. It was painfully cold at -20 degrees C but worth it for the views and the board down (made more interesting by having to avoid putting any turns in when you were crossing the snow bridged crevasses!!). On the way back to the tents we took a sort detour to enjoy the sun setting over Mc Callums Pass, it was strange to think that it is probably the last time we'll see the sun for a while as it no longer rises above the mountains and we're loosing about 10min of daylight each day.

Trekking up Gwendolyn & Sunset over McCallums Pass

Night Watch

There comes a time in every winterer's season when it's your turn to do nightwatch. This week it's my turn. The role of night watch is basically to make sure there's always someone awake on base to be ready to respond to any emergency situation, but also to provide emergency radio cover for field parties, do rounds of the whole base to check doors are shut and anything that doesn't need to be on is switched off and of course there's the glamarous part - cleaning. Any time left over is free time which I made use of by experimenting with my new-found photograpy skills in the dark room, putting together the scalextrix track, going to the gym (which was suprisingly empty at 3am) and catching up with all those little jobs you never find time to do.

Part of the night watch round invloves going through a small door in one of the phone booths to check the water pumps are working properly. Behind the unusually small door lies a Heath Robinson affair of pipes and cables and a very old computer which beeps occasionally and displays the message 'HELP' in green writing on a very old monitor (apparently it's very important and is busy measuring ozone).