Sky Blu copiloting

Last week I was very lucky to get to Sky Blu on a copilot, as I had been diving on Saturday I had to wait until Tuesday to go flying as the safety limits are to wait 48 hours to decompress nitrogen bubbles from your system before you go to altitude. So I got a lift on the Dash-7 all the way to sky Blu, as you can see from the map below.

Sky Blu is 75 degree's South and surrounded by Nunataks (hills), it is 4500 ft above sea level. It is important for supporting BAS operations allowing the Dash & to input fuel, field equipment and people; what would usually take about 4 otter flights! AS a fuel depo it also allows the twin otters to fly further south.

These were the passengers that I shared the flight with, lots of drums of fuel.



VIP mug

Using the CAT to unload the fuel drums, then reloading the Dash with gear left over from the field.



Incredible weather

 The reason it is so great for BAS is that is has a 1 km blue ice runway that is maintained by mechanics and field guides. These blue ice areas form where mountains/nunnataks obstruct flow causing the ice to flow upwards towards the surface! Not just good for planes but also for a bit of ice skating...my balance and coordination must have improved over the winter because I didn't fall over!  

Lots of people from base get stuck at Sky Blu over the season due to bad weather. It isn't that bad with a big sofa, two reflex heater in the weather haven tent and a cooking area in the photo below.

Real milk sent in from ALE!!!

There is a melt tank that is rigged to a heater, so we fill it with snow most days to then get water to cook and drink.

The Alpine 1's are proper old skool - I loved them!

Credit goes to John Law for this awesome graphic. It's a famous quote around Rothera as usually when the field officer James Wakes tells you that you're going to Sky Blu you should pack for at least 2 weeks as weather and getting flights out to there can be difficult.

I think Steve had been there too long

Walking back to our melon hut - it was very warm as it also has it's own reflex heater.

The sun is already starting to get low again.



I have been sailing!!!! I've been missing sailing a lot with the return of the sea, so instead we used a sledge on the blue ice runway. Great fun.

Steve who was the Sky Blu field guide whilst I was there in the past was a chef...he cooks amazing food on a stove!

At Sky Blu there are 3 underground garages, these are awesome for storing things over the summer but mainly over winter. Ice crystals form on the roof which makes it look spectacular.

The plastic roof allows drifting snow to pass straight over.

This underground/snow garage would be an awesome rave location...

It's pretty cold at Sky Blu, my hair froze which always makes me feel like I'm in the true Antarctica...at Rothera we are a bit spoilt in the summer as it has been reaching temperatures of +2!

Weather haven where the sofa and food is!

I was there for the first day of Sky Blu being closed down for winter. First job is snow blowing all of the tents and weather havens so that they can be dismantled and put in the under ground garages for winter.

The main job at sky blu is to refuel planes, the spate pump (just like the one we use at Fossil Bluff) allows us to pump fuel straight into the twotter.

This is Stewie dipping the tank to check for water contamination

I was very happy to get flying again!!! The new garmin system takes a bit of getting used to.

Towing on the Alpine 1 up a hill had its moments..

Almost a sun set



The sunsetting behind the nunataks

haa I made Mark the pilot stand in this photo. Love how big the nose of the twotter is

Our main mission complete...we picked up the last few guys who had been on the Ibeam traverse since October... ths

Flying back to Rothera over the sea ice!


Such an incredible few days getting the furthest South I have ever been and actually standing on the Antarctic continent finally. It was great to have a bit of a break from work before I head back to the UK on the Shackelton!  

Science mission on HMS Protector

I had the opportunity to work from the HMS Protector for a few days last week. We were only on board for 2 and a half days but completed work on 3 different islands a few miles away from Rothera. The Protector is a Royal Navy Ice patrol ship.

 

 An impressive crane!

I do hate these ladders

We had to carry survival gear with us which included tent, food and stove encase we got stranded on one of the islands.

We had three main missions. From Rothera we travelled to Horseshoe island, then Pourquoi Par and then Lagotellerie and then back to Rothera

 

Our first mission was to go to Horseshoe Island where I was responsible for swapping out an old sea ice depot and replacing it with new stock. Horseshoe used to be a BAS (then FIDs) base back in 1955 where meteorology and geology was carried out, it is now looked after by the Antarctic Heritage Trust. The purpose of a sea ice depot is for BAS winter travelling from Rothera across the sea ice, it is put there to use in an emergency encase the sea ice party get stuck at Horseshoe in the worst case scenario that the sea ice breaks out.

 

 

Lots of cruise ships and yacht visit Horseshoe and in the past our emergency stores have been raided so we spent a bit of time writing on the drums.

 

 

We did find some chocolate that had already been opened and not claimed....from 1992, the year I was born!

 

The team from the Antarctic Heritage Trust are currently fixing and indenting the buildings at Horseshoe, so the depot will be put in this small hut once they've completed their restoration work.

 

Emily and Ali also had some terrestrial sampling to complete. We collected soil and lichens for some of the biologists from BAS.

 

 

 

My second major mission was to install a sea ice camera on Pourquoi Par island. Al assisted the install with his excellent knot tying skills. This simple set up of a gabian basket, tripod, small solar panel, battery box and Cannon 700 D will take a photo every hour for one year until Zoe the next marine assistant picks it up next year! Hopefully it will all work, the camera and memory card was set up and tested at Rothera and when we left it was taking a photo every hour so now the camera is in the hands of the weather gods.

 

We placed the camera on moraine (rocks that have been picked up and then dumped by a glacier). I chose this as the perfect spot to capture icebergs carving off the Moradier glacier as it's high enough to get the whole glacier whilst also giving a view of where the icebergs then travel. The island is also usually shrouded in cloud with an inversion a bit lower down so hopefully this placement should give us more photos than if it was up higher!



This sea ice camera is in collaboration with BAS through Dave Barnes (DKA) and Bangor University. More information about what this type of data can provide can be found here:  http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.13523/full  & affiliations with Bangor University:  www.asccc.co.uk

 

 

 

 

Chris a geologist was also on the island with us sampling erratics, these are rocks that have been moved and are exposed by the glacier, they are important for dating movement of the glacier. This type of geology is called cosmogenics, as the rock is dated by using isotope signals to see how long the rock has been exposed to the sun for. Chris was interested in rocks that were high in quartz. Below I am assisting him to clear up one of his sampling sites by knocking off the edges.

 

My third mission was to assist Emily and Ali on Lagotellerie Island, Marguerite Bay, Graham Land an Antarctic Specially Protected Area (ASPA)  where the aim is to protect environmental values, and primarily the terrestrial flora and fauna but also the avifauna within the Area.





The reason that this island was made an ASPA is because it contains a relatively diverse flora typical of the southern Antarctic Peninsula region. Especially the abundance of the only two Antarctic flowering plants Deschampsia antarctica and Colobanthus quitensis which form stands up to 10 m2
 These are amongst the largest stands known south of the South Shetland Islands, being only 90 km north of their southern limit.


 In addition to this, mosses and lichens form well-developed communities on the island. A few of the mosses are fertile, which is rare in most Antarctic locations.

Deschampsia antarctica at the highest recorded altitude south of 56° S.




Amazing to see how green an island can be in Antarctica - exactly the reason why this island is so special! 


The developed beneath the vegetation and its associated invertebrate fauna and microbiota are unique at this latitude

The second exciting thing about this island, apart from the fact that it was so green was the penguin colony!




Adélie penguins (Pygoscelis adeliae) and one of the farthest south colonies of a few dozen blue-eyed cormorants (Phalacrocorax atriceps) at the south-east corner of the island. Numerous pairs of brown and south polar skuas (Catharacta lonnbergii and C. maccormicki) breed on the island.

 



These guys look like they should be in the court room!

 



Using the GPS to get a distance from the Penguin colony.

 



Bum sliding is always faster

A great few days work, a great thank you to the HMS Protector and it's crew for assisting us with some important work!