Lost voice = everyone on base is ecstatic!

Danger Penguin... we watched him for ages thinking he was going to fall down the hill, the little Adelie managed to keep upright for the whole mission - much to our amazement ! 

I feel like the past week has been an intense week of sit down amazing meals washed down with some lovely Rioja mixed with intense work as the ship arrived which meant that the base god evaded with lots of new people, along with lots of resupplies for us to unload and unpack! All of this has coupled together for me to loose my voice...much to the annoyance of the base (I joke).

The JCR launched a glider and conducted some water samples in our long term sites whilst we waited to moor it up!

We had Christmas a day early as the James Clark Ross (JCR) was meant to arrive on the 26th, however it was two days late due to some glider and water sampling work! The ship arrived early on Monday. I along with a few others including the boating officers were responsible for mooring up the vessel, it went very smoothly!

JCR

Once it arrived I spent next few days ''ragging'' a Gater around Rothera being a postman and delivering all of the parcels to the correct zones, once offloaded from the ship.

Emily Venables & me

So much food!

Relief means that everyone helps out! We all made a chain within the corridors and passed the food down the line to be put away for storage! 

Whilst the ship was moored alongside the warf we were too busy and it was too restrictive for us to go sampling or diving! 

I did manage to use the ship to do some work , using their salinometer which measures conductivity. I was trusted with the salts samples from 2014/2015.

New year was epic. The boat shed was turned into what reminded me of a barn dance back in Wales (I felt right at home)! There are a lot of talented singers and musicians this year which meant lots of different bands entertaining us until 12.

We even celebrated New years three hours early so that we could wave to our love ones through the webcam!

Once New Years struck Rothera, most of us boarded the JCR and stood at the bow whilst the oldest and the youngest member of the ship rang the bell. It was definitely a moment to remember.

2016 began, we cast off the JCR and were left with stocks full of food and a few other necessitates and got straight back to work - no rest for the wicked.

I would just like to thank everyone who is taking the time to read this blog, but to also wish you a very Happy New Year and I hope that it's everything that you expect it to be or make it to be! For me it is going to be a weird one knowing that I am in Antarctica for the whole year, again very resfeber! Lots of love x.x.