Life Beyond the Beaker

Kate our diving officer recently got a risk assessment approved for us to go diving on ice bergs. The conditions need to be calm on the surface and we an air temperature of > -5 oC, the icebergs also need to be grounded and fasted within fast ice for us to get close to them, if not then we can look at them from a distance.       When there is no fast ice, ice bergs move with the wind and currents, unless grounded. During this time ice bergs are too unpredictable to dive on, as below the surface is 3 x the height of what is above the water. Even on a cold day icebergs can roll and break up.   Kate Stanton's photo Here is a wide angle shot of the ice berg in Hangar You can see the excitement in my eyes!     One day last week we went diving through the main hole whilst Ben's controlled his remotely operated vehicle (ROV) called Debra through the safety hole and videoed our dive! It was such an incre...

    In the last week of October Al and Rob went out to Fossil Bluff to begin the opening up of the hut at Fossil Bluff. I then went into Fossil Bluff and Rob got moved onto Sky Blue, so I helped Al to finish off getting the site up and running for the summer after 8 months of being winterised. Fossil Bluff Fossil Bluff is used as a refuelling site for the twin otters that fly from Rothera to Sky Blue and then further afield to the Berkner ice shelf where there is a traverse of scientists or onto Halley and other remote sites. I managed to spend a few days here last February (I wrote a blog post called the silent sound). Fossil Bluff has an amazing mountain type hut (photo above) beneath the ridges, the building itself was brought over from Stonington when BAS were the FIDs and then it was rebuilt next to King Geroge IV ice shelf. We had a big list of jobs to do, I won't lie, it took me a few days to get into the swing of digging as I reall...