A real white Christmas

The wildlife is amazing here, on Christmas eve Michelle, John, Ben and I went on the Skua survey. Ben was holding a flag to mark our territory against the skewers as we needed to measure eggs within their nest, as very territorial birds it can be quite a challenge to get close. John was logging our position on a GPS, while I was using binoculars to get the tag information.



Living on an airfield is a dream since I was younger, so moving away from Usk Gliding club which is only a few fields away from my house in Wales, to then living at Lasham this summer as a tug pilot and now I'm here at Rothera watching a Dash-7 and twin otters taking off everyday is amazing!!

I also feel spoilt with the chance to dive here, the wildlife is so diverse. It's also mind boggling that I would much rather be in the ice covered water than above it, as the air is so much colder!

This is me collecting sediment samples for a microplastic project that I am studying.

Anna and I during our snowboarding sesh,.

The evening after our Christmas party we were all shattered so I had organised, with the help of a few others to have a movie night in Fuchs (the Field Guides building) with a projector, sheepskin and baileys hotchocolate! We all loved it so much that we're going to do it again tonight!

A photo of some Adelie penguins because they're so cute. 

All of the Bonner Lab staff had a call from Samways and Adam the boaties to say that there were Orca in the bay...we all ran down but missed them! Once we see Orca we cannot dive for 4 hours and then 30 minutes prior to a dive one person needs to conduct an lepoard seal and orca watch before the divers are allowed in the water.

My first Christmas away from home! It's very surreal, I've been busy working and filling my time with fun activities like snowboarding so that I don't miss it too much.

My family did keep a place for me at the dinner table though - cute! I've spoken to them alot over the past few days!

This is what keeps me distracted....the views here are just incredible.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Definitely guaranteed a white christmas this year!

Merry Christmas to you all!!!

 

 

We are celebrating Christmas a day early here with a 7 course meal as the James Clark Ross is arriving on the 26th which means that we have a lot of unpacking to do as it has all of our supplies for the next year on it. Before that we are having a movie night on sheep skins and a projector in Fuchs house and an evening of carols with mulled wine and mince pies!

 

 

What a weekend!

This is home for the next few... months!!





The end of last week was slow as brash ice didn't allow us to get out and CTD or dive, until Saturday! We work Saturday mornings here!

Saturday was a good dive, we were marking if a grid of small square cement blocks had been hit by an iceberg, we then replaced the old blocks with new ones - the aim of this study is to look at the impact of disturbance of icebergs on community structure. It's a hard job to do underwater as you need to be properly weighted so that you do not hit the sediment that you're trying to sample whilst carrying around concrete blocks.


Saturday I skidoo-ed a lot !!!! We got to the caboose which is at the bottom of the mountain called Vals, the caboose is a hut used for warming up and making yourself a cuppa tea after getting towed up to the top of Vals to then ski down! I did lots of the skidooing up to Vals and then I took some Nordic skis and skiwalked to the skiway where the twin-otters land if it is too dangerous too land at Rothera.

Sunday was what Rotherans call a dingle day. A dingle day is when there is hardly any wind, no snow blowing and the sun is shining!



We all had a lie in followed by an incredible full breakfast brunch. A few of us then headed to the ice cliffs just behind the hangar with the field guides off the base.



We there learnt how to ice climb. It is such an amazing hobby that these field guides have the best hobby!


You are attached on a belay via a harness (you double figure of eight and stopper knot around your harness), then using two ice axes climb up a vertical ice wall. We were taught to keep our arms straight, bum in and then shuffle our feet up whilst pulling up on our arms. Whilst moving your feet which have crampons attached (the spikes) you did your toe in first and then unnaturally push your heel down.



After lots of runs up different routes the fun didn't stop there. We were kindly given the opportunity to go down a crevasse that is worryingly (but safe) near base.

This is the small hole that we were belayed down which opened up into a massive crevasse.

We were lowered down a hole which opened us up into a world of so many different blues, even was pretty silent as we walked around the crevasse.



It was incredibly icy!




After an epic weekend we were back to work; the fun continued. On Monday Adam and I drove the rib for Ben whilst he drove Debra around (his beloved ROV which is a Remotely operated vehicle), it was a stressful morning as there was a fast ice flow which meant that small and large bits of ice were flowing fast which made it difficult to drive the ROV.

Thanks Emily Venables for this photo!

We moved to the warf so that we were stationary, after getting it slightly tangled around a rock Adam and I were looking over the side of the rib at it at the same time a leopard seal popped his head out about 1 m away from us; I haven't screamed since I got here - that time it was well justified.

Thanks Emily for this photo of Sam and I!

Even as I write this blog I must just say that it's not always fun and games like it may seem, there are stressful moments and you're leaving with a tight knit community for such a long time that (especially me as a blabber and loud mouth) has to be careful to not be too loud or say the wrong thing but it's pretty much smooth running's all the time which is great!



On a happier note, yesterday I had an epic dive where we completed lots of work but it was made incredible by a few penguins swimming around us.

Antarctica is such a beautiful place, I am learning so much!!!

At the end of the day when it's as warm a can be here I've found my new favorite spot to watch twin otter test flights, the sea and clouds!! 

 

 

 

Settling in!

A PENGUIN!!!!

Finally a photo of a Penguin for you all, taunting the seals!

Elephant seals have invaded our base...



This week as flown by so fast - we've crammed so much training and fun things into such a short time. However, these past few days have been too windy or too much brash ice built up in the bay to allow us to dive or collect water samples from the boat - rather frustrating!

After our first CTD, Sam and I spent the next two days in the lab processing the water to extract ammonia concentrations and fractionated the chlorophyll for our long-term plankton studies!

The next mission was to get me checked out by the current dive officer Emily, with my first dive in Antarctica just off the warf so that we could stay shallow - it was INCREDIBLE! I didn't even get cold which really surprised me! There is also so much life down there, we saw; a jellyfish, sea lemon (that was one of my first missions to see), starfish and sea urchins. The life down there is very vast.



On the weekend I Nordic skied around Rothera Point with John and Caroline -much easier to ski than walk through the freshly fallen snow and I only fell over once!

Caroline, John and Me

Thanks to John Law for capturing this moment.....

I then saw lots of people skiing the ramp so I decided to go and offer to skidoo people up the ramp - it is so fun being allowed to skidoo up an icy hill with skiers on the back and wizz back down!

Kate and me

Thanks to John Law for this photo



Tom and Hector!
 

On Monday morning, 48 hours after diving I went on my first co-pilot trip on the twin otter with pilot Doug.



Our mission was to fly to the camp called Quebec to pick up some equipment and Bradley from a field party. After we got above the clouds and the turbulence from the wave settled down I was allowed to fly us to Quebec the field party just before the pilot took over for a circuit. The contrast for landing was very difficult as there was high cloud shadow against the snow. There was a skiway to land on our skis next to the field camp that had been tested for crevasses. When we arrived we found out that we had to load a skidoo, sledge, fuel drums and more cargo into the small plane! It took a while, but with perseverance we managed it! We then flew back to Rothera, in time for me to go to work in the afternoon.

Twin otter yay

Earlier on this week Sam and I managed to drive the boat through the brash ice to get to site 3 (not the best site as it means we can only cast down to 100 m which is not as good as our usual 500 m site) to do a CTD, however, the wind was a southerly which meant it was blowing us into shallower water. After a first failed attempt we managed to get a second cast! The wind then picked up meaning that the brash ice was starting to block our exit off the warf - we hastily returned to the warf to crane the boat back onto land, ditching our hope of getting some water samples. We returned dishearted but realistic as we are in Antarctica and at the end of the day is it safer to be on the land having a cuppa instead of stuck between the ice with no way to get the boat out!

Yesterday I was on the GASH rota which is rotated around everyone. Gash includes a day in the kitchen basically being a pot washer, assistant chef and cleaner - it's actually really good fun, especially when you get annoy the chefs with your music!

The next few days we have winters team training and hopefully more diving and sampling coming up if the weather allows, the Chilean RAF are also popping through for the weekend....Phwoar.

Another Penguin photo to prove that I really am here :)

 

 

Base Training

Living at Rothera means that you are constantly busy...especially as a new arrival.

From 8 am my day is filled, from breakfast to weather briefings and then conducting job or site specific training which is then interrupted my smoko (which I will tell you more about later on in the season), lunch, second smoko and then dinner!

On Monday we trained in crevasse rescue where Kate and I were attached, she then jumped off the side of the snowy hill .. I then had to use myself as an anchor, whilst making a new anchor to convert the energy to.


IN order to do this we used a metal pole and hammered it into the ice, then attaching a carabineer and prusik transferred the energy using a jumar, that meant that I could move and walk over to the side of the hill to check she was alright - as this was a training exercise she German style walked back up the hill by kicking her crampons into the side of the hill and using her ice axe if needed. The ice axe is also useful if you do fall then there are certain techniques for you to dig it into the ice, keeping it close to your body and your legs in the air!



After this we then took a snowcat up to a caboose on Vals near Reptile ridge, it was rather gusty meaning that snow was constantly flying at us!

The Antarctic tents are incredible, the poles are stuck into the ground, then are certain ways to put it up in order to not loose your tent during the night!

 

The bedding is also incredible - sleeping on an air matt, with sheeps skin over top and then a massive down sleeping bag with an inner, an outer and a blanket on top! I had a greats night sleep!

As soon as we got back from our camping trip early on Tuesday we went straight to our first day at work! I was rushed onto a boat to do some sampling, as the wind was blowing brash and sea ice onto the warf where we launch the boats but the wind had died down enough to give us a big gap!

Sam (also Ex-plym uni) is the current Marine Assistant who is training me up to take over his job when he leaves me in March!

Sam and I went and conducted a CTD (Conductivity, Temperature, Depth) equipment!

Icebergs are extremely dangerous! Type into YouTube 'rolling icebergs' ....that's why we stay 3X the height in distance away from the icebergs! But they're so beautiful.

Pushing our way through brash ice to get to CTD site 2

We also collected some water samples which over two days we tested ammonia levels, fractionated the chlorophyll and also saved samples for virus, bacterial and other sorts of analysis to be shipped to Cambridge!

Wednesday was also busy with more lab inductions, boat theory and our first Antarctic boat handling course! It was epic.


Now for the next few days hopefully I will be having a dip in the water! I may even work on my Nordic skiing!

Chao for now :D


P.s.

Yes..I am trained as a liquid nitrogen generator user....we use this to freeze our samples! This job is so bizarre haha