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!

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 29^th 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 3^rd 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 7^th 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 10^th 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 14^th 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 11^th 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 13^th 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...