TALES OF A MARINE SCIENTIST WHO LOVES ADVENTURING: March 2017

Sunday, 19 March 2017

BOLs...packing up to go home!

BOLS...I'm currently completing Bills of Landing paperwork to send all of the samples that I've collected over the past year back to the UK! I've only got three weeks left here at Rothera, so I'm busy packing, enjoying my Antarctic experience and trying to lots of diving to collect animals for the transport aquarium. I am getting on the RRS Shackleton the second week of April, from there we are heading to the Falklands to drop most of the summer Rotherans off whilst we leave 22 Rotherans to winter. I am then heading to Montevideo on the ship for 2 weeks where we are doing a crew change. Then 3 weeks sail home, so I should be home in June! Not sure how I feel about entering the real world yet, fellow winterers that are already home have told me that it's been a hard transition from having to pay for things, busy traffic and lots of people...it's going to be interesting.

Full girl crew on the dive vessel

Tom and Julie kindly took Me and JenDoc up Leonie a few weeks ago. It's been a walk that I've been wanting to do since I arrived at Rothera as it's one of the more accessible peaks to climb that we can see from our home. We got dropped off my boat by Adam!

An incredible panoramic view of where we live, Rothera is just behind me.

Seal on Leonie

Jen, Julie & Tom on the awesome peak

7 am SAR for the 3 Twin Otters that left last week

Hector and I have been attempting to master the art of kite flying in Antarctica...we've been too scared to put skis on yet...

We have had some really windy days here lately, definitely later in the season

Rosie preparing the weather balloon

8am launch, gusting 30 knots - pretty exciting launch!

Adam & I walked around the point in a 50 kt wind...awesome waves, we got absolutely drenched but definitely worth it.

On the way to an Island dive completing seal watch, they're all watching a Fur seal doing it's usually twirling display!

The visibility is still shocking....!

Zoe getting very frustrated at measuring out chemicals accurately!

So many preserved animals to pack...these are the monthly collections, within the tubs are animals that I collected over the year for preservation for scientists back in Cambridge to complete a reproduction study on.

Gemma also bored of packing but seems to be enjoying parafilm.

Zoe and I have completed our handover now, so she will be continuing the long term RaTs dataset for the next year! She's going to do awesome and I wish her and the marine team and the rest of their wintering team the best of luck - they're going to have a great winter.

Just wanted to add this photo in from a few months ago when we were doing yoga on the balcony ... I'm going to miss this place!

Friday, 17 March 2017

Major incident PRACTICE on station

At Rothera we have a major incident PRACTICE, I must reiterate the word practice. This is to test the base on how it would react to an incident all the way down from the station leader, to the communications tower to the first aiders on base, fire trained personnel and all the other little jobs that fit into assisting with an emergency.