Friday 31 December 2010

Well, that's a Christmas I'll never forget...

I’m going to start this post firstly by apologising for the tardiness, apologies Toms mum and aunt, and by saying that this was a Christmas I will never ever ever ever forget for a whole host of reasons, one of them being the wrong reason...
Since my last post not much has really happened on base and life has been ticking over in the countdown to Christmas.  The only thing to note that I can remember was being on Gash last Wednesday.  Gash can have a whole host of meanings...down here we use it in the same way as the Navy: rubbish.  Each day we have someone on the Gash rota and it is this person’s job to help with all the cleaning tasks around base.  When a person is on Gash they can be expected to help out with the cleaning in the kitchen, helping the chefs and doing a specific cleaning task for their allotted day.  It might sound as though it’s not that fun but it actually is; you get to leave the Tower for the day and help out in the kitchen which is really enjoyable as well as getting to go round the base and chat to the people you don’t normally see during working hours.  To be honest, Gash is a bit of day off!
The build up to Christmas here has been fun – decorations in the Tower, carols on Christmas Eve and a pub quiz.  The decoration making was interesting: making paper chains in the Tower in between flight following is definitely not one of the things I thought I would be doing when I came down here.  The Christmas carols on Christmas Eve were good fun too, although we didn’t really sing any but the mulled wine and mince pies we had really hit the spot and helped everyone feel a bit more Christmassy.  It’s quite hard to get into the Christmas spirit here when the sun shines for 24 hours and you’re cut off from everyone else.  It’s also hard to get into the spirit when you’re always working morning, evening for about 12 hours every day including weekends.  Don’t get me wrong I’m not moaning about work, I love working down here in the Tower but it does mean you are always preoccupied with work.  The pattern of work down here is much like the military: one minute it’s manic, the next there’s nothing to do – hurry up and wait. 
Christmas Day was one of the best days I’ve had since I’ve been down South.  Luckily we didn’t work because of strong cross winds but if it hadn’t been for these then we would have been up in the Tower slaving away whilst everyone else, except the pilots, would have had the day off.  I woke at about 9am Christmas morning and called home to see what everyone was up to, it was about 12pm at home so they had all got back from church and were opening pressies.  It was really nice to speak to everyone and it made me realise how much I wished I could be at home.  It even helped me feel a bit more Christmassy speaking to them all and listening to them relaxing in front of the fire.  After that we had some brunch at about 10am and watched some Star Wars in the briefing room on the projector.  What a classic!  You can’t get any better than that!  Though there were an alarming number of people who hadn’t seen it before – Tom and I were appalled.  Shocking!  Then Vicky, one of the Docs, had the cheek to say it was one of the worst films she had seen!  I feel very concerned for those wintering because it seems that their Doctor has mental problems...  After that Tom and I spruced ourselves up and donned our Nos 2s for Christmas Dinner.  This went down a storm with everyone and it wasn’t just the two of us dressed up – Dave Dive was wearing his tuxedo, a few others were in suits and Andy Boat was in his finest Highland regalia.  After the meal we all went up to the bar which is where the majority of people stayed until about 3am when an incident occurred which marred the evening, shall we say...  This is the event which will remind me of this Christmas for years to come and one that I probably don’t want to think about ever again.  Obviously I’m not going to say what happened on here so you’ll just have to use some imagination...
The rest of the festive season has been good, although it doesn’t feel very festive, and the band is in full swing for Friday night.  It’s the big one: New Year’s Day.  The moment everyone has been anticipating.  The crowning glory for the Savaged Ross Experience (the name changes daily...) it is now only a day away and I’m starting to worry.  I’m pretty sure we’re good enough to be able to play but I want people to think: ‘Wow! Those guys rocked! And who’s the dark, handsome one on lead guitar...’ Not: ‘Very well done guys! It’s nice to see you out of the home and smiling. Are you with the Happy Foundation?’ (spoken in loud, slow, patronising voice).  I’ll get some photos up and maybe a cheeky video of our performance if anyone is interested and then you can decide for yourselves.  So far the set list reads: Muse-Plug in Baby, The Raconteurs-Steady as She Goes, The Dandy Warhols-Bohemian like you, The Violent Femmes-Blister in the Sun, The Divinyls-I touch myself (don’t ask...) and an acoustic medley of Umbrella, Bad Romance and Maneater that Ross, Reit and myself are playing.  It should be a really good New Year’s Eve – we are holding it in the garage and they’ll be a couple of guys who have brought their decks down playing and a cocktail bar.  So hopefully a good night should be had by all, so long as a repeat of Christmas Day doesn’t occur...  Oh dear. 
For the last two weeks Tom and I have taken on the role of circuit master.  Alan Hill, who usually organises circuits, is down at the Bluff and will be leaving and heading North soon so Tom and I have taken up his mantle.  We have decided to give people a taste of Navy style circuits and so far people have enjoyed them.  It does involve a lot of mincing but I think most people down here are pretty open minded when it comes to that sort of thing...  Yesterday it was my turn to put people through their paces and from the looks of pain and groaning that I heard I can safely say: mission accomplished!  In all seriousness though I didn’t make it that hard for them – I don’t think it would go down if we broke half the people on base through circuits.  To make them even more Navy and Fleet Air Arm like we have made it mandatory that the Top Gun sound track is played always.  No exceptions.  This does make it slightly weird when you are doing squats to the song: Take my Breath Away...  We have also been giving them a taste of PTI wit as well: ‘pair up in threes’, ‘short sharp bursts of endurance’ and ‘pain is just weakness leaving your bodies, so take control of your bodies’. On Friday we’ve got the New Year’s Eve 10km Race on the runway and I’m sure most people wouldn’t thank me for giving them an injury.  I’m quite looking forward to the race as I’m hoping to get a time of around 40-45 mins; the runway length is 900m (not as long as some in Scotland!) so it is just over 5 laps. 
Apart from that not much has been happening.  The only thing that I will say is that the Christmas post came in which was a big morale boost – thank you everyone at home.  The only annoying thing about this was that half the mail was left in the Falkland’s.  This has left me very disgruntled as an eagerly anticipated parcel of delicious brownies should be all over my face at this moment but alas no.  The beginning of Feb and the next lot of post can’t come round quick enough!  Thank you Ellen, even though they aren’t here yet, the thought of your delicious but slightly old brownies should get me through January!

Tuesday 14 December 2010

Holiday Bluff

For those wondering why I haven’t posted anything on here in a while I’ve been living it up Scott style in the field for two weeks at Fossil Bluff.  This post covers my time in the Bluff right up to arriving back at Rothera.  It is a bit of a beast and is about the length of a small thesis so no worries if you can’t finish it.  Maybe I should have posted it in instalments...

Fossil Bluff
Monday 29th November
As I wrote in my last blog post, Tom had been sent to Fossil Bluff for the week and was due to return in the next few days.  When he returned he told me how he hadn’t wanted to come back to Rothera because he had enjoyed his time spent at the Bluff so much, living the ‘Adventurer’s Life’ – all he had to show for this was a ginger beard, no frostbite.  Disappointing.  At the risk of repeating parts of my last post, Fossil Bluff is located to the south of Rothera some 250 miles at King George VI Sound.  The Cabin lies on the east coast of Alexander Island on the George Sound side.  It is also known as George VI Ice Shelf because the Sound is permanently frozen.  You wouldn’t be able to tell we were on the coast without looking on a map, the ice shelf stretches out to the Peninsula and is covered in snow and so looks like land.  If you are wondering why I say: ‘we’, it’s because on the day Tom arrived back, I was told I was going down to Fossil Bluff for a week.  Everything down here is very last minute and when something occurs that involves you, you are usually the last to hear about it.  It’s not a bad thing but it does keep you on your toes though! 
I flew down to the Bluff yesterday and arrived at about 1100 to a flurry of activity.  We were one of three planes there and all of them had their own purpose, whether that was unloading Avtur drums, loading empties back on or, for Doug’s aircraft, science surveys.  Before I left I was led to believe that there would be about five of us sharing the four man cabin but as I found on my arrival it was just to be myself and Glynn.  My job down here is to be the radio operator and the MET man.  It is my job to talk to Rothera and pass on the weather conditions I record down here as well as talking to the aircraft when they land at the skiway (snow runway).  Another part of my job down here is to refuel the planes and unload or load any cargo or drums they have or need.  With aircraft passing through a fair amount as well as doing the hourly MET observations it can get very busy down here. 

Refuelling at the Skiway
When the planes come through I always chat to Jon, one of the pilots, to find out the ‘Word of the Day’.  Back at Rothera we have created a Tally of Shame in the Tower for any incorrect RT or silly mistakes on the radio.  At the mo I have the most on the Tally but I’m putting that down to Karen making me laugh whilst I was taking weather from Fossil Bluff.  I accidentally said: ‘wind 330 knots at 9 knots’.  Whoops.  It’s not funny at all but it made me laugh and it had Karen in stitches and it then went downhill from there...  If you’re reading this Karen, you know what you did!  I was laughing so much during the weather ob from the Bluff that I had to put Tom on standby while I composed myself.  Hilarious!   We also have the credits board where you can gain points by saying predetermined words and one of those is the word of the day.  So far I’m the only person to get any words of the day in, the words being: Polar Bear and Cribbage.   Cribbage I managed to slip in with Jon and Polar Bear I said to Doug, although I don’t think he knows about word of the day so probably thought that I was special needs. 


Friday 3rd December
End of the week here at the Bluff and quite a lot has been happening.  On Tuesday night we had Dave Boat and Ian Potten stay the night due to poor weather at Rothera.  It was quite nice to have guests to entertain and Glynn knocked up a fantastic chicken stew which I decided to ‘enhance’ with some hot sauce.  Big no no.  I thought it was about the strength of Tabasco so I liberally applied it all over my meal only to find that my face wanted to die when I tried some.  I had to make and drink three pints of the powdered milk we have down here which tastes like a kick in the balls.  On further inspection of the sauce, which was called: Dave’s Insanity Sauce, the label on the back informed users: ‘A great cooking ingredient for sauces, stews and soups.  Also, strips waxed floors and removes driveway grease’ I had to throw my dinner away...

Inside the hut


The next day the weather improved and Dave and Ian left for Rothera and later that day Dickie came into the Bluff to replace Glynn.  Since Dickie’s been here the planes have been coming thick and fast.  We managed to dig out a transport sledge at the skiway which was firmly frozen in and had been so since last summer.  When Glynn was still here, we found a blow torch and tried to melt it out.  The sledge, however, didn’t want to play ball.  If anything we were just melting more water into the bits that were frozen to create a super block of ice around the sledge’s runners.  We have also constructed a fresh water hose which runs from a header tank round the back of the hut to the glacial melt water stream behind us.  It needs about 500 metres of hose and we had to dig about two foot down to get to the running water but now the Bluff’s future inhabitants will have fresh mountain water to enjoy at their leisure.  Before this we were collecting snow and melting it in the cabin which can be a ball ache but is necessary.  Since Dickie has arrived, the flatscreen in the Dining room at Rothera, which shows all the notices and information regarding who is manning what station, now reads: Fossil Bluff – Dick and Dom (in the Bungalow).  Brilliant.  To be fair though, we are called Dick and Dom, and the hut technically doesn’t have an upstairs so we are fair game... 
With Glynn gone I wondered if the culinary delights in the nights to come would be up to the standard of those that he had produced when I arrived.  I needn’t bother worry.  Last night Dickie and I ate like kings.  Like kings!  We had a delivery of fresh fruit and veg sent in with one of the planes as well as some chicken breasts.  We decided to go for what was definitely ambitious but at the same time the best meal I’ve had down here.  It wasn’t the best based on the quality of the food but on the satisfaction that came from preparing it.  We decided on avocado with balsamic vinegar and tomatoes to start, followed by chicken satay with egg fried rice, and to finish we found some mini Christmas puds which we had with some Courvoisier Brandy.  Scott is probably turning in his grave.  It’s such a hard life out in the field...  To be fair though that was only one meal.  All the other food here went out of date years ago, even the Manfood boxes (BAS issue rations for two people for three weeks) were packed in 2003.  The most recent box I’ve found was from 2008.  I’ve been eating sugar puffs that went out of date in 2003 for the last week.  To be honest, they aren’t too bad and food’s food at the end of the day. 
Talking of Christmas, back home all the Christmassy adverts must have started now and all the radio stations will be playing all the crappy Christmas songs.  That is the side of Christmas I’m not missing.  I am missing all the Christmas Carols, Christmas shopping and finding the right present for someone, family and friends and surprisingly the dark evenings.  I know people will probably think I’m crazy but when you have 24 hour day light you do miss it when the evenings draw in and you’re inside your nice warm house looking out at all winter has to throw at you.  I haven’t seen the moon for ages.  I’m looking forward to Christmas at Rothera though; it will be the first Christmas I’ve spent out of the UK and away from family. 
In front of V-BL at the Skiway
Today was also eventful as I co piloted V-BL with Ian Potten on a trip down to Sky Blue.  Sky Blue is the other satellite station that Rothera has and is about 500 miles south of Rothera itself.  We, at Fossil Bluff, are quite conveniently positioned halfway which means we act as a bit of a refuelling depot for the planes on their way down to Blue.  This was easily one of the best days I’ve spent down here as it’s been about 3 months since I was last behind the controls of a plane.  Obviously because I haven’t been trained in take off and landings with skis Ian took control.  The rest of it was mine.  I think he quite enjoyed having me there as it meant that he could palm off all the flying to me and therefore get down to the important business of eating his sandwiches.  To be honest it was great to be flying again but it was a little boring (God help those who go multi’s), we pretty much flew in straight lines and only banked to a maximum of 10 degrees.  Rock and roll...  Still I won’t complain too much and hopefully in the near future I’ll be doing the take offs and landings.  Well, so I’ve been told...
V-BL on the Skiway
Sky Blue itself is a very desolate place: 75 degrees south and as flat as the eye can see, except for the huge mountain at the end of the runway.  All their accommodation consists of is two Melon huts (small circular hut) and some tents.  It all made Casa de Bluff look like a luxury hotel.  When I rocked up it was about -18 Celsius and as windy as hell.  It reminded me of the Hoth from The Empire Strikes Back, although my Tauntaun joke didn’t go down that well.
 
Tuesday 7th December
Go for a week they said.  Don’t worry they said.  It’s been two days since I was supposed to leave the Bluff and would you guess - I’m still here.  I’m not surprised to be honest.  I spoke to Al Hill, one of the base GAs (General Assistants), and he told me about the time he came for a week.  Three weeks later...  It’s no drama though, I’m loving my time out here and I’m not that fussed about going back.  All Dickie and I really do here is read, cook, look at the weather and climb.  Earlier we were both out on the balcony shirts off, working on our tans with a good book (in a completely non gay way...).  We’ve also turned the Bluff into Bakery Bluff by doing the most amount of baking I have ever done in the last week.  When I say we I actually mean me, Dickie’s always out doing something or fixing something while I stay in and bake (again, in a non gay way...).  So far the total to date is: two loaves of bread, 4 tins of flapjacks, one lemon curd sponge cake and some oat biscuits.  We’ve even had orders in from Sky Blue for two tins of flapjacks which we sent to them on one of the Otters that passed through.  Apart from the baking nothing much of interest has happened.  Yesterday we had another no fly day and I decided to climb the mountain behind the hut, Drune hill.  It is not a hill.  Whoever named it never had to climb it otherwise they wouldn’t have ridiculously name it a hill.  It would have been Mount Drune.  Due to this incompetence, when I finished slogging my way to the summit, which took an hour and thirty minutes, I renamed it Mount Savage.  Although as Dickie pointed out it does sound a bit like a request...

At the summit of Mount Savage

The only other interesting thing to note is that for the last couple of days we thought that Dickie had killed George, the tame Skua who lives at the Bluff.  I think he has only been loitering around the Bluff for a couple of weeks but like all wildlife on the continent he is undisturbed by humans and will let us feed him by hand.  George usually appears every mealtime on the dot, everyday.  Then for the last two days he stopped, which was very unusual.  A sheepish Dickie then let slip that he may have fed him a seed bar from the manfood box and as he ate it he did seem to choke a lot.  Oh dear...  ‘So what you’re trying to say is you killed George?’  ‘I think so...’  He then flew off, still choking, and wasn’t seen again.  That was until this morning when he turned up for breakfast.  Dickie will sleep easier tonight. 
George, the Skua who will eat anything...
Well, tah tah for now.  More baking to do and dinner to prepare, why do I feel like the housewife in this relationship? 

Friday 10th December
What I wouldn’t give for a good shower.  A nice warm, long shower.  It isn’t like I smell or anything, or that I’m not washing here, it’s just it would be a lot nicer than washing with a flannel and a bowl.  Oh, and a toilet.  An actual flushing toilet instead of a stick in the ground or a large bucket.  Again, it’s not as if I can’t manage without these things it would just be nice, like having someone give you a foot rub sort of nice.  It looks like I am going to have to keep looking forward to that shower for a bit longer; it turns out that I will be here until at least next Tuesday.  By then it will be the 14th and here’s me leaving my advent calendar in my cabin because I thought I was off for a week.  Oh well.  I’ll just have to catch up on all the chocolate when I’m back...  By the time I’m back I will have been gone for about two and a half weeks and these two and a half weeks have been a holiday, I’m not going to lie to you.  Our day consists of taking MET observations every hour and radioing them back to Rothera, refuelling aircraft when they come through the skiway and general repair work around the Bluff (of which there is lot’s but we don’t have the tools to complete).  On the average day we were getting two to three aircraft rotations but due to different requirements, aircraft going to the Pole or survey work, we are lucky to get one a day now.  Today we had V-BB swing by on their way to Sky Blue, where they’ll be for a month, and then we were stood down for the day.  We’ve also got no planes coming tomorrow so it looks like another day of reading, sunning and maybe the occasional walk.  BAS should definitely market this place as a little holiday chalet because it’s got it all: climbing and skiing, nature walks, wildlife, glacial valleys with rivers and waterfalls.  The best part?  There’s only the two of us for at least 150 miles, maybe more.  No other hill walkers or tourists, our own little playground. 
Dickie on top of Sphinx with Pyramid behind
A couple of days ago Dickie and I decided to do a three peaks route round behind the Bluff which covered Drune, Sphinx and Pyramid.  It took us about three hours to complete and we covered about 10 km as well as climbing up to 745 metres (Pyramid).  Since then we’ve been a bit boring and have just been watching films and reading.  At the mo I’m smashing my way through Homer’s The Odyssey after already reading Frankenstein and The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy trilogy and am fast running out of books to read; although we do have a bit of a library here with about 200 books on the shelves.  I could always read Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment...  Or maybe not.
The only other slightly interesting thing to happen down here is that the Bakery has branched out into brownies.  I did say ‘slightly interesting’...  I’m not going to lie: they are the best thing ever – so watch out Ellen!  However all this baking has opened my eyes to how much sugar and butter goes into these things.  We must have used 8 blocks of butter in the last week, that’s over half a block each per day!
We also received the mother load of all deliveries a few days ago when one of the Otters came in.  We had doughnuts, bread, fruit loaf, cheese, two dozen eggs, orange juice, grapefruit juice, wholemeal flour, beer, two boxes of Blossom Hill red (equivalent to 8 bottles) and more bacon and sausages than you could shake a pig at.  That was a good night. 
I’m now trying to decide what to do tomorrow.  Toboggan and skidoo are two words that spring to mind...

Saturday 11th December
Another day with not much to do, I’m starting to think we’ve been forgotten about.  As it turned out we weren’t stood down for the whole day today – we had an Otter fly up from Sky Blue to Rothera pass through for fuel.  This meant no toboggan/skidoo surfing: I was disappointed, Dickie relieved. 
We decided to make the most of what we thought was our day off by getting up at 1100.  Bliss! I can’t remember the last time I slept passed 0900 since I’ve been here.  Then we had a delicious brunch of bacon and poached eggs on toast – definitely beats eight year old sugar puffs. 

Our beached Skidoo

The only interesting thing that happened today, and the reason I’m writing this entry, was our doo decided it wanted to try life as a submarine.  As we were coming back to the hut from the skiway we managed to break through the ice on the lake we were travelling across.  Luckily the doo didn’t sink completely and we had time to ‘abandon ship’ before she sank any further.  Due to all the melt water runoff from the glacier behind the hut, two vast frozen lakes have formed around the Bluff effectively creating a moat.  As the summer season progresses these melt but for the moment there is a thick (and thin in some places) layer of ice over it.  When it gets to the point in the season where the ice melts you can no longer drive a skidoo up to the hut; we knew it was about this time in the season and we took the risk.  And lost...  We were doing about 30/35 mph when it gave way so we were almost thrown off when the ice went.  Luckily, because we were going at this speed, we managed to drive further out of the break before the doo stopped.  The ice behind had completely gone and the skidoo managed to beach itself on a bit of solid ice, which prevented it from completely sinking.  Then came the horrible realisation that would have to jump off and ‘swim’ for it – I say swim but the water was only mid thigh height.  After walking back to the hut with numb frozen feet we planned our rescue mission and donned the dry suits that were kept there:  'Erm, Dickie?  Does your Boat suit have sleeves and a zip?'  'Yeah, why?'  'Oh, no reason...'  It turned out that mine was the ‘sports’ version as it had half of the actual suit missing.  Better mobility apparently.  Great, just what you want before getting into a lake...  We decided to get the second doo and tow the first one out, the only problem with this was we didn’t know where the ice was thin.  So what did we come up with?  Oh yeah: I’ll just walk the planned route of the second doo jumping up and down a lot to test the ice strength, good one.  Yes, I did go through the ice.  Several times...  Once we’d found a route we were able to tow the first skidoo out and get it back to the hut.  It’s a good job I’m leaving soon because as the summer goes on I think a lot more skidoos are going to try their hands at swimming...


This season's 'Sports' Boat suit modelled minus a set of sleeves and zip.
  Tuesday 13th December
Back in my cabin now all unpacked and straight back in the Tower, not that I mind.  I did feel bad being away from the comms team for such a long time especially as air ops did start to ramp up in the last week.  Now that I’m back though there’s no rest for the wicked and I’m back flight following and doing Field Party Scheds.  I also co-piloted a flight as soon as I arrived at Rothera, which I wasn’t expecting as I was looking forward to having a shower and some nice clean clothes.  I’d been on the ground for five minutes when Andy, the Field Ops Manager, asked me to co-pilot the same aircraft I had flown in on down to one of the deep field parties, Sledge November.  Although I was knackered I wasn’t going to refuse an opportunity for flying so I jumped back in the right hand seat and off we went.  I’ve worked out that actual stick time, not just time in transit, that I’ve flown down here is 4hrs 40mins which I’m pretty happy with and hopefully will clock up more as the season progresses. 
Things on base are quieter than when I left.  Most of the scientists have gone home for Christmas and those that have stayed have gone out to their field projects for anything between a few days to a few months.  Whilst I was at the Bluff, the James Clarke Ross, a BAS survey ship, visited Rothera to drop of a year’s supply of food, vehicles, a new boat, around 80 drums of avtur and a whole load of other stores.  Luckily I was at the Bluff and missed all the ‘unpacking’ that needed doing when she arrived.  I have heard that HMS Scott might be visiting us in Jan/Feb which should be fun and an excellent opportunity to get into rig.  Tom’s a little disappointed about this because he’ll no longer be the most Senior Naval Officer on the continent anymore.  Which means I'll no longer be the Flag Lieutenant to the SNOC.  What a shame...

Monday 22 November 2010

You’re going to need a bigger boat....

Week three and things here are really starting to spice up! No, I’m just messing.  Things here are the same as they were when I first arrived.  That’s not to say that I’m bored or anything it’s just that nothing of interest has really happened.  Tom left for Fossil Bluff, which is one of Rothera’s satellite bases only open in summer.  In terms of distance it is south of Rothera by about 200-250 miles and is the equivalent of flying from London to Brussels.  Due to being a summer only station it only accommodates four (I say ‘station’ loosely, it is effectively a log cabin built in the sixties).  He left last Monday to work the radios down there and he should be back sometime in the next few days.  Due to the fact that he left before he could train in the tower he is yet to get himself signed off, something that I managed a few days ago.  I am now allowed in the tower Jason Derulo, which is pretty cool as it is a big responsibility looking after up to five aircraft at a time, one of which travels intercontinental.   Not to mention all the diving operations around base and, when needed, fire cover.
 Fire cover sounds like it should be the best thing since sliced bread: you’re all dressed up in your fire fighting clothing, manning the fire truck ready for action, going over your drills in case the moment comes.  That’s what it sounds like it should be.  In reality the clothing you wear looks like it was last used in the 60’s, you feel like an extra on London’s Burning, the boots are one size fits none and are big on me, so for Tom’s size 6 feet I hate to think what would happen if he had to run anywhere!  Also the fire ‘truck’ is more a fire pickup with a few hoses and a barrel of foam onboard, enough to do the job but it’s not red and there’re definitely no flashing lights....
As of yet still no flying for me.  Last year’s Navy Holdovers managed to get a few cheeky flights with the Chief Pilot practising take off and landings on snow with the skis down.  Hopefully Tom and I will get that chance but because the seasons been so delayed due to the new avionics in the Dash everyone is trying like crazy to catch up on flights.  It also doesn’t help when the weather is poor.  I used to think, with regards to flying, that the weather at home could be quite unpredictable and suddenly change; that was until I came down here.  The only way I can describe it is: yo yo weather.  One minute it will be blue skies, the next it will be a complete whiteout with visibility dropping to about 50 metres.  We’ve had a few days down here when there has been no flying at all.  On the subject of the flying down here being different to back at home, we had a very amusing incident with a seal the other day.  When back at home in the UK the dangers of bird strike are well know and bird scaring takes place, here it seems there are bigger animals to worry about.  I was in the tower on flight following when Steve, the MET forecaster, popped up to see what I was up to.  It was then that he pointed out two Elephant seals in the middle of the runway just hanging out.  Great.  Some time later in the afternoon: oh, what’s that?  V-BC calling finals?  Oh dear.  I can imagine the call to Clem, the Hangar manager, telling him we have an ‘obstruction’ the runway.  “Birds is it? I’ll just go scare them with the Gator” “Errmmm, I think you’ll need something a bit bigger than a Gator, Clem...”  For anyone who hasn’t seen an Elephant seal before they are huge!  Easily weighing over a tonne, they are about three times the size of a person.  Also they don’t take kindly to being chased across the runway by a small man in a golf buggy as Clem found out when the seal reared up and started chasing him.  Whilst all this is going on, the Twin Otter, V-BC, has had to do a go around to avoid seal strike.  Not your average day in the office.
Life outside the office the last couple of days has also been entertaining.  Every Saturday we have a three course meal where we dress smartly (shirt and jeans), have our weekly shower and have tablecloths on the table, that’s right tablecloths!  It’s really good fun and is the closest thing I’ll get to a Mess dinner whilst I’m down here, although it’s not the sort of occasion to crack out the Nos 2s.  From what I’ve heard from people who were down here last year it looks like the earliest Tom and I will get to wear our Mess Dress will be New Years Eve.
Another point of interest is the formation of The Dom Savage Experience, an up and coming new band hitting the Rothera music scene.  In all seriousness we aren’t really called The Dom Savage Experience but the name seems to have stuck whilst we have been looking for a new one.  Without blowing our own trumpet (because there isn’t one in the band - whey!), we are pretty good.  So far we have myself on guitar, Ross on bass and Reit on drums.  Unfortunately we are yet to find a singer and I have reluctantly stepped in until we find someone better, which won’t be hard.  So far we have learnt a handful of songs including: Muse – Plug in Baby, Wolfmother – Joker and the Thief, and The Raconteurs – Steady as She Goes.  The aim is to play a set at the New Year’s Party that is held in the hangar with other live bands and a few guys dj-ing, although depending on how the practice goes we’ll see if that comes to fruition.....

Wednesday 17 November 2010


Our residence for the night
It’s been over a week since I last posted on here and about the same since I arrived in Antarctica.  Apologies to those who have been badgering me for posts!  These past few days have been extremely busy, filled with briefings, meetings talks and practical lessons.  It’s been busy but at the same time it’s been awesome. 

When we first arrived we encountered some pretty heavy turbulence, which was the worst I’ve ever experience.  It wasn’t so bad that it freaked people out it just made Ian, one of the guys flying down with me, vom all over his sick bag which, for the rest of us, was very amusing.  After we landed we were allocated our cabins which, although small, are very comfortable.  They remind me of the Phase 4 Dartmouth cabins but with en suite and bunk beds.   As it turns out I’m to be sharing the next four months down here with Ian (good job we’re on the ground!) 
At present I have done all of the training I need to do in order to be allowed unrestricted access around the base, which includes skidoo driving and practical field craft.  The main forms of transport around Rothera are Gators or skidoos.  The Gator is a small golf buggy like vehicle used for moving people or small bits and pieces around the base and a skidoo, also known as a ‘doo’, is mainly used for deep field parties moving across the continent for months at a time.  The training we got was simple but effective: push to go forward, push to go backward and if you go too fast you’ll flip’, and that was it.  The guy teaching us, smiler (he never speaks, only smiles and nods), is known at the base as the ‘Doo whisperer’ so we knew we were in good hands. We then had field training to complete which mean going up the Ramp, a large hill opposite the base, onto the plateau behind and camping for the night.  We loaded up a pyramid tent onto our skidoo and took it up to the plateau where we were taught how to construct a basic field position with the tent.  This involved digging a base for the tent to sit in and setting up the HF radio with a set of 5 metre long wires as antenna.  After that we were left to our own devices for the night. Tom and I took our doo further up the mountain side to get some better photos and decided to chow down.  In the rations box, known as a Manfood box, were all sorts of unappetising treats.  All the food is dehydrated so it doesn’t matter about the best before date; the food we were eating expired in 2002.  Yummy.   We decided to go for a three course meal of soup, chilli con carne and oats to finish.  Bad move.  The soup proved to be an interesting choice. After putting one sachet into the water we decided to thicken it with another.  It went instantly from watery to syrupy.  “Awesome, chicken!” Tom exclaimed.  This was powdered soup...  It turned out the ‘chicken’ was congealed lumps of un-dissolved powder.  It was possibly the worst thing ever.  The rest of the food was actually not too bad and I ended up scranning down three other main meals. 
The Ramp with Reptile Ridge at the top

View on the way in to Rothera
The base itself is similar to how I imagined it but not on the same scale.  It’s spread over a far larger area which makes going from work to dinner when there is a 40 knot blizzard blowing a pain in the arse.  Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love the fact that the weather is terrible, it’s just tedious getting soaked through sometimes.  The weather at the start of this season has been pretty bad so far.  This time last year all the snow had melted and people were walking round in shorts in a balmy 5 Celsius!  This year there is so much snow we actually have to dig our way out of our accommodation and some second storey windows are covered in snow.  The temperature here hardly rises above -2 celsius, which some may not think is that cold but when you factor in wind chill from 40-50 knot winds it feels like -10.  I’m quite glad that the weather is poor, it makes it seem like I’m experience more of the ‘real’ Antarctica: the snow, the blizzards and the wind are exactly how I imagined it to be and if I’d arrived and found the snow all melted I don’t think I would feel the same way I do now.  

The view from the outside......




....and from inside
 
The best office view in Rothera has to be in the Tower.  From here we can see everything from the south cove, to the ramp, to the icebergs to the North.  This last week has also been spent getting myself and Tom up to speed with the Standard Operating Procedures for flight following and all other Ops work down here for BAS.  Now that we are up to speed and signed off we can get on with the job we were sent to do.  My role as Comms Officer is to flight follow, boating/diving follow, comms with deep field parties and general radio comms around the base.  The flight following is the bulk of the work we do and involves radio checks, passing weather, checking in with aircraft at certain positions and providing information for take off/landings and circuits at Rothera.  Having completed EFT at Barkston, this is all very familiar and has become the most enjoyable part of the work.  With boating and diving ops we do similar tasks as we do for the aircraft: maintaining radio contact, updating them on weather and logging their positions.  The deep field comms is very different to the following we do and could be seen more as an informal radio show.  The guys in the field can be living in a tent collecting data for up to two months and each night it is our job to collect their data and chat to that party.  This can be anything from talking about what’s going on around base, how their favourite sports team did, to what’s going on globally.  These guys will spend so much time away from base that it is good to chat to a different voice once in a while and get some news that doesn’t concern ice samples!

The Tower at New Bransfield
 That’s all for now, I hope it makes up for my long absence.  I will hopefully be able to write more frequently now that I’m settled in here and the next post will possibly be about what I get up to during the day.  To be honest it probably won’t be that interesting so I’ll just write about penguins.  Everybody loves penguins...
A juvenile Emperor penguin

 Some Photos from around base:






Sunday 7 November 2010

A few quick snaps of the Kamikaze club, which had no link to WWII whatsoever and which, once you made it round the two bouncers and along the dodgey alley, was a hoofin' club.










Saturday 6 November 2010

Don Juan of Pesos

5th Nov
11:30 local
As I said in my last post: I probably wouldn’t write on Wednesday night.  I had good intentions to but the vast task of packing all my kit the night before somewhat preoccupied me.  I spent most of the night packing, repacking; weighing, reweighing and before I knew it: it was 2 am.  With regards to the weighing of my bags my bathroom scales aren’t the best.  To be honest they’re rubbish.  So instead what do I do? I create a character on Wii Fit called Baggy and measure the weight that way.  It was such a riiiidiculous thing to do but I was getting desperate.  And what really started to get annoying was when the Wii repeatedly told me that for Baggy’s weight and height his BMI equalled death.  It’s a bag! I don’t care what its BMI is or its Wii fit age is, just weigh the bastard thing! “Oh Baggy with a Wii Fit age of 70 and a BMI of 2, you should really go to hospital” – Sod off. 
Everything after that went well and I arrived at Heathrow with PLENTY of time to spare which for me was very unusual.  Before I left I had a nice lunch with the family who came to see me off.  No tears, so I can only assume they cracked open the champers when they got back in the car! 
At the time of writing I’m currently sitting in Santiago Airport, Chile, waiting for my connecting flight to Punta Arenas.  It’s the first time I’ve been to South America and from what I can see out of the windows of the terminals it is stunning.  On the flight in from Madrid we were told to put our seatbelts on as we passed over the Andes, no idea why; and at the risk of being called gay, they were breath taking.  To fly over the Andes at 25,000ft is something that my literary skills cannot do justice.  The snow capped peaks hinted at what was to come later on this journey.

13:35 local
Just had lunch and I’ve realised what people have known for a while: I have special needs.  I paid for everyone else’s meals as I needed to pay by card and instantly forgot that everyone had paid me back for their food.  So I’ve got Pesos.  I’ve got lots of Pesos.  I’m effectively the Don Juan in terms of Pesos.  So what do I do? Take out more Pesos of course.  $20,000 more.  So now I have $60,000.  Great.  Firstly why in God’s name does your currency need to be so big Chile? Take of at least a nought or two.  $600 for a can of coke?  Knock off the last zero and let’s call it 60 cents or something.  Secondly: what the hell do I do with $60,000? Buy 100 cans of coke? For anyone who’s wondering what the current exchange is on Pesos: $1000 is about £1.20.  I know some of you at this point are probably saying: “What’s he so uppity about? It’s only £72.” I’m only in Chile one night which means I’ll have to blow most of it tonight.  Luckily we have found a few places to visit in Punta, including a Japanese WWII style club.  Yeah, I know what you’re thinking.  

6th Nov
Today was supposed to be the day, but it turns out it isn’t.  I’m writing this from my hotel room but I should be in the Antarctic now.  Unfortunately due to adverse weather conditions we are stuck here until Monday.  So it looks like it’s a good job I am the Don Juan of Pesos after all. 
Yesterday when we were met by the agent sent to meet and greet us at the airport, we were told that we would probably be flying this morning.  That was put back until the afternoon and the afternoon soon became Monday.  To be honest I’m not complaining: the hotel’s nice, there are bars and restaurants and, especially for those staying the 18 months, it’s a chance to relax before getting on to the continent.  I also met up with Tom Gilderthorp who is the other Royal Navy holdover as well as the SNOC.  As it turns out the weather is holding a lot more people up than just myself. Gilders was supposed to have arrived two days ago. 
We didn’t end up in the Japanese bar last night.  It was located at the end of a dark alley with two shifty looking men standing at the end of it.  Instead we ended up in the Union Club in the basement of a mansion built for the widow of a wealthy wool merchant in the 1800’s. It turned out it was the place to be when in Punta on a Friday night and we spent the evening drinking the local beer and listening to Rod Stewart, not exactly the night I had planned! 
Hopefully the next time I write it will be to say that I’m on Antarctic soil and not that I’ve been delayed further. But I’m not holding my breath or counting my Pesos......