Silent Sound.

Before winter begins (in 6 weeks time everyone leaves 22 people on base for 7 months)...us winters get to have a little holiday, well it involves work but mostly it's about having a bit of a relax and alone time before the fun begins!

I was co-pilot for the trip there and back which was INCREDIBLE. On the way there it was very sunny, the scenery was breath taking. On the way back 4 days later the weather was not so kind, however I thought this was awesome as I got to do some instrument flying, Ian even taught me how to feather the prop and adjust the torque. We also found some wave to climb up in! 

So for 4 days I was based at a place called Fossil Bluff which is in the middle of nowhere. It is the most idyllic and historic place I've ever been to. 

Below is Bluebell Cottage. This was mine, Samways, Bryony and Joe's cottage for 4 days. It was over looking King George IV sound placed on Alexander Island just off main land Antarctica.

Whilst at Bluebell cottage, one must read Silent Sound which is by Cliff Pearce. He was one of three to first build and winter at Bluebell cottage. He named the book silent sound because when you sit at outside at fossil bluff it is the most silent place in the whole world (except when I was there) and you look over King George IV sound.

On our first day there we hiked up Belemite Valley to find these beautiful fossils, hence why it's also called Fossil Bluff. 

This rock is so hard to walk over!

It's the most peaceful I think I've ever been to. Plus, the BAS issue RAB sleeping bags are incredible.

So apart from a ''holiday'' we were actually there to work. Fossil Bluff is actually in the spot it is because it acts as a refueling station for passing aircraft that are flying back into Rothera from the field, so I absolutely loved it here even more because I got to work with twin otters!

When we were not refueling planes we were doing met obs (meteorological observations) every hour from 0650 am (the earliest I've been up in months). I found this a great task as I love the weather, mainly because of how it can change so quickly, here in Antarctica that is exactly what happens. One minute it goes from drifting snow, the next minute it's full on snowing like a snow tornado.

WE use china pencils to write down the observation on this board, then we relay this weather ob over the radio to Rothera who pass on the information about the weather around fossil bluff so they can decide if it's safe to land or not, therefore we need to be very accurate.  

When it's a no flying day we keep Bluebell cottage running, mostly by doing lots of baking and walking, doing circuits, going climbing, playing chess, reading... Samways made brownies and I invented 'Yellow Snow,' this was actually Lemon sorbet which was lush. I basically mixed sugar, antarctic snow (not with wee on it) and lemon together. It genuinely tasted amazing with the brownie. 

All in all we had an amazing little break and I can't wait to go back again after Winter. This is our little gang playing UNO which we got very addicted and competitive over. 

Peace out <3

The mission of the sea-ice camera

My line manager Dave Barns has been given a grant to look at sea ice movement from the Sheldon Glacier which is <50 km to the West of Rothera. I have been tasked with the mission to look after this camera over the winter. 

The aim of this project is to look at how the ice breaks away from the Sheldon Glacier and then which direction it goes, also to see if it looks like it scours the bottom of the sea bed as it moves. In a years time there is going to be sea bed mapping project in front of the Sheldon glacier, with these two techniques coupled together we can start to look at how ice bergs scour the sea floor and damage the benthic species. 

 

Dave Barns explains: ''This sea ice camera will remotely photo sea in front of a rapidly
retreating glacier and help understand how sea-ice loss in the polar
seas is helping life on the seabed grow more, capturing more carbon and
fighting back against climate change.  This fits into work by a
multinational group of scientists working on the Antarctic Seabed Carbon
Capture Change project (www.asccc.co.uk) and can be seen at
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.13157/full.  The paper is
also in the latest darwin Newsletter.''
(http://darwininitiative.us8.list-manage.com/track/click?u=ad90159af3938cb51a14696ac&id=e07e4e5711&e=031778ba30

First mission: to secure the camera in a place where the Sheldon Glacier can be seen.

Bradley (the Feild Guide), Octavian (our person electronics guy), Dave and myself headed from Rothera in the Snowcat, we then roped up to walk to Badger Buttress which is a ridge opposite the Sheldon Glacier.

The reason we are all roped up is because this area is not used much in recreation as there are a few crevasses about. We are roped up so that if someone does fall then we can get them out easily. 

This is a sign of a crevasse but Al and Bradders had checked out the area the day before.

Once we got to the top we set straight to work to attach the camera safely, this camera could be seeing 80 mph gusts over winter so we are preparing for the worst (note how many rocks we've used as weight). It looks a bit sci-fi. The top camera is a standard SLR with a wide angled lens to capture the Sheldon Glacier which you can see in the background and then how it breaks away. There is also a solar panel attached which charges a lithium battery as the camera is rigged up to a timer to take a photo at midday everyday. In addition to this we are comparing the setup to an all in one GoPro version which is the black box! 

Yay mission complete, now to come back in a few months to check that the battery or SD card hasn't failed.....also to check it has not blown away or got covered by snow........