The Fleet Is On Its Way

Alpine 2 Ski-doos Buffeted By The Wind

Just as we (the winterers), were getting used to having a few more people on base. The successive Basler flights have brought the complement on base up to around 60 people. The once empty dining room is now overflowing at meal time while the boot room has become a battle ground, strewn with orange boilersuits and jackets.

The Surgery Office
Photo thanks to Melanie


However, a large number of people on base means that work can start on some of the larger jobs that are needed to keep the base running all year round. Raising the fuel depots falls into this category. The drums contain Avtur, a form of kerosene, which powers almost everything on base, from the generators to the vehicles and planes.

The Fuel Depots


The 45 gallon drums are stored in miniature pyramids, three drums high and like everything else on the snow surface rapidly accumulate snow around them. Worse still, the black drums warm rapidly in the sun, melting the snow around them, which then refreezes as ice. Raising the depots is hard and potentially tricky work, even when using a large Nodwell crane to pluck three drums at a time off the top of the depot.

Raising Fuel
Drum shackles are attached to the drum, which are then freed by the crane


However, as the older hands, who are here for the summer and have accumulated many years experience over the last decade, are not slow to remind us, we have had a lot easier as large bulk tanks now store a large proportion of the fuel, saving us the difficult winter tasks of raising depots and refuelling direct from drummed fuel. Avtur, apart from its pungent and distinctive smell, has the unfortunate ability to permeate into every item of clothing, where it rapidly conducts heat away and means very cold hands should you splash it while refuelling.

Bad Weather at the Garage


The empty fuel drums are mostly shipped out for re-use, though some are reborn as markers along drum lines as the bases spreads its tentacles across the ice shelf. The familiar black specks dot the distance marking both the perimeter and the frequently travelled routes to other important sites (such as the sea for the forthcoming relief), enabling navigation on the otherwise ceaseless and featureless shelf.

Watching the Balser Take-Off
Lance, having refuelled the ALCI plane, watches as it struggles into the air


One of the most difficult things as a winterer, that I have had to get used to over the last few weeks, is the transition from a small team of 18 working together to help look after everything that we do from cooking, to science work, to the general work around base, to the situation where there are more than enough people to cover their jobs and rarely need a hand. In fact while we wait for first the two ships to arrive that bring both the cargo for the relief of Halley V and the construction of Halley VI, there are days when work is thin on the ground and any chance to get outside and dig is coveted. A situation made worse by a miserable five-day blow confining everyone inside and covering the whole place with wet, warm, sticky snow.

Tom and Ant Raising the Perimeter Drums


Melanie, who has been the BAS doctor at King Edward Point for 2007, whom I visited on my journey south also arrived on the last Basler flight in. Having spent almost a year at South Georgia, she will join the Shackleton when it arrives at Halley later this month and provide the medical cover for the ship over the austral summer as it shuttles back and forth between Cape Town and Halley. Meanwhile I have yet to meet Hannah, who is currently on the ship and will swap places with Mel as she starts her job as the Halley wintering doctor for 2008.

Tom Mixing Techno Tunes


That means that unusually there will be two doctors at Halley over the summer period (Hannah and myself), as the outgoing Halley wintering doctor (myself this year), would cover the Shackleton while it was South until it sails home. However, given the large number of people on station this summer and the heavy construction work, there will be two of us providing cover. That said, I hope that neither of us has to do much medical work!

MedEvac Training
Mark (pilot), watches on while Mel sets up the stretcher during an exercise


The Shackleton will call three times at Halley over the summer, the first call or relief, is the usually the longest as all the cargo for the year ahead is unloaded. Relief of the station is always a busy time but this year will be unlike any relief so far, as the MV Anderma, a ship hired to carry a large amount of the construction materials for Halley VI (the new station, whose build will start this summer), is planned to arrive five days or so after the Shackleton.

Caught in a Blow


Both ships have now left Cape Town and are heading South with the Shackleton well into the ice and the larger Anderma a few days behind. Between us and them, though, is the sea ice, the thickness of which is largely unknown until it is tested. The trip down last year took longer than expected due to heavy ice but with a lot of construction work that needs to take place this year, there is a lot more riding on the two ships encountering good ice conditions.

The Extent Of Sea Ice In November
Image courtesy of National Sea Ice Data Centre (www.nsidc.org)


A large number of winterers, mainly from the science teams, will depart with the Shackleton when it leaves at the end of relief, whereas I will be heading out on its third and final departure from Halley around late March. The departing winterers will mean the end of the band formed over the winter at Halley- 'Z or Dead', who have tortured us with Friday night rehearsals and provided some great Saturday nights in the bar.

Z or Dead- Live at the Garage


To celebrate the influx of people they put on one last gig, taking advantage of an unusually empty (as in vehicles rather than people) garage to host a Saturday night party. Along with Tom's German techno warm-up act, it was the finest night from a band whose rock covers have livened up many winter nights.

Raising Drums


Now the fleet are sailing South, this time feels very much like the lull before the storm of the Halley V and VI reliefs. The paucity of things to be done reflects how enthusiastic everyone has been to get jobs done, with any work going quickly snapped up and sorted and perhaps that is why I enjoy working here, generally surrounded by other enthusiastic people who are all here because they want to work, as a rule enjoy what they do and take pride in it. It feels in distinct contrast to NHS hospitals which I have (temporarily) left behind, where those three things may have been true a few years ago but are no longer, broken by ill-planned reforms and external interference.

The Laws Legs in a Blow