Sunday 14 June 2009

As We Head Further Into Winter….

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This photo was taken this morning at 10:30. Another beautiful Rothera sunrise; except that the sun no longer rises anymore. This is the best we get. The temperature is about minus 10C and dropping. An hour and a half later, my friends an I did our charity busk. By then the temperature had dropped to minus 15C… pretty cold!!

The busk went well and we had some fun; we played and sung the songs we had rehearsed, but not without mishap… this is Antarctica and Mother Nature was plotting our downfall.

We played outside in the cold for over 35 minutes. The low temperature caused the guitars to go out of tune and the saxophone was getting harder to blow.

By the end of the busk my fingers were numb, Danny’s guitar lead had lost it’s flexibility, Paul’s sax was unplayable and Riet was just frozen! It sure was good to get back inside to warm up again.

But spare a thought for Paul. He went straight to bed after the busk. He’d been up all night because he is currently on nightwatch duty, so he was way past his bedtime.

You can still help us raise funds for the charity by going here:

http://www.justgiving.com/antarctic_minkes.

There was also an article about the World Busk in the The Times this week, and we get an honourable mention. You can read that article here.

Other things happening around Rothera:

Elephant seals have set up home on North Beach; right under the window of New Bransfield House. It is always good to see wildlife around here, but ellie’s are the foulest smelling beasts I have ever encountered, so our joy and pleasure is somewhat tempered by their odious stench.

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Also this week;

If you look north (where our sunrise occurs; check the photos) you will see that the horizon isn’t flat; it is mountainous. The sun has been hidden behind these mountains for some weeks now. If we had a perfectly flat horizon the sun would’ve failed to rise above it this week. It is a Rothera tradition that we lower The Union Jack on this day. The Union Jack flies proudly from Rothera Point because we are living in British territory. We had a small ceremony as we lowered the flag; it will be raised again when the sun returns again in July.

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These photos were taken at midday. This is as bright as it gets these days; and yes, that is the moon hanging low over Mount Liotard.

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I’ve been pretty busy with work just lately; well – it is the reason I’m here, after all.

I was having some problems with the lighting in Admirals House, our accommodation building. Upon further investigation I discovered this:

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When I removed the diffuser I discovered that the light fitting was frozen solid. I’m gonna have to wait until it thaws out before I can do anything about that!!

Also, we’ve been having some niggling problems with one of our sewage pumps lately.

This is me, just about to go under the floor to check it out, and before I realised what an unpleasant job it was going to be. We can’t just call someone out to do the nasty jobs here; we’ve got to do them ourselves.












Marty, our plumber, actually had the worst part of this job. I just assisted him; but I don’t think I need give you any more details. It wasn’t much fun, but we got it all sorted in the end, so the whole base is quite relieved…

To help pass the time away we have frequent fancy-dress parties. When you consider how limited our resources are, the effort and ingenuity that goes into some of the costumes is just amazing

A few weeks ago we had a Heroes And Villains night. I raided the old clothing store and found some genuine antique polar clothing. Unfortunately, it smelled as old as it looked, but no matter; I turned up as Scott Of The Antarctic, one of my heroes.

Heroes and Villains Night (4)

Heroes and Villains Night (36)

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See who you can spot amongst this lot. Answers on a postcard…

This weekend we had a wrestling theme. We had to invent our own wrestling character.

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My character was called “High Voltage”. Well – I am the base electrician.

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Below is a photo of our much revered field GA’s looking well-hard!!!

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The evening was completed by a game of “Top Trumps”, based on our own character’s plus and minus points.

The things we have to do to entertain ourselves down here!

Midwinter week will soon be upon us. There is an air of growing anticipation and excitement around the base; much like you have for Christmas. We get the whole week off work to play and enjoy ourselves as we celebrate the most significant, poignant and special time in our polar calendar. Even now, folk are busy organising fun events and frivolities for us to enjoy.

I’m looking forward to Midwinter very much. It is a milestone in any winterer’s Antarctic experience. A time when we all have mixed feelings about missing home and loved ones; looking forward to the return of the sun and to the return of old and new faces at the end of winter; and enjoying the unique bond of friendship between Antarctic winterers.

This is a very special time, and I’m in a very special place. I never forget what a privilege it is to live and work on this most beautiful and spellbinding continent.