Life Beyond the Beaker

Not many people in the world work on sea ice. There is a reason why. Sea ice forms when the sea temperature is -1.8 0C, the air temperature must be below -5 0C and when it first forms the wind must be <5 knots. Over time with these perfect conditions the sea ice gets thicker and thicker. Looking from the Ramp at Rothera with the sea ice in North Cove (Left of the photo) Before we are allowed to work on the sea ice we go out with the field guides and test it. Before we go on the sea ice, we check the past three days of weather conditions and if it's going to be stable for the length of time the sea ice party is out there. When you get to the edge of the ice we call opps to let them know our intentions. We then use a bog chisel to check the ice is fully fasted to the land, tide cracks form around the edges and out into the bay made by the movement of the tide, we hit this tidal crack with a bog chisel to test it. WE then test the thickness of the ice out from the tidal crac...

Midwinter gave us the break we all needed. Usually celebrated on the third week of June during winter solstice, however after the medivac was successfully completed we celebrated during the last week of June.    We started off our first weekend with a well needed rave!     Throughout the week we also had the JCB challenge.. to get a tennis ball into the holes the fastest! So much concentration!   We also had winter Olympics which included tug of war and various other hilarious antics   We started off our day of celebration our midwinters day with bacon sandwiches and champagne!! It started well. As is Antarctic tradition we each had a secret santa style presents! At the start of winter we drew names out of a hat and since then we made a present for that person. There were lots of creative idea using the tech service guys for help in the chippy shed and the garage.   I had a lovely painting given to me by Callu...

Before I write about our midwinters celebrations I feel the need to finish off talking about the medical evacuation that we recently helped with but to also talk about the darkness in Antarctica and how we've been coping.  Weekly sampling on Stella, I'm preventing the CTD from falling too quickly so that we get a good profile of the salinity, temperature and fluorescence in the water column.  Before the medical evacuation we have been able to get out sampling once every week since winter began, this is pretty rare as usually high winds, or sea ice prevent us from getting the boat in the water so this has kept us busy and focused. Emily and I have really pushed each other to make sure that we are prepared to go out sampling but also make a plan for the week with everyone else at the Bonner to insure all of the work is completed - so far so good and with no shouting!  The sea temperature is now -1.8 degrees which is the freezing point, however, the wind h...