Back at Halley

Back at Halley, but not quite the same as the one I left 5 years ago. The glaciology of the Brunt iceshelf forced us to move the station to the safe side of an emerging crack. So the whole station was moved 23km from its last site to a new one known as Z6a. Unfortunately the glaciological situation was sufficiently complicated that we decided that it wasn't prudent to leave people here in the winter when getting them out would be near impossible. See https://www.bas.ac.uk/media-post/115024/ - much of the reason I am here is to oversee our response to not having staff here in winter but still wanting to keep the scientific productivity of the station, more on that later. The modules are powered and we are working and having some rec in them, although we haven't commissioned the wet services or the fire suppression so we are eating and sleeping in other (less salubrious) buildings.
Here are the modules - still looking amazing:

 We however are based in and around the summer overflow accommodation building known as the Drewry.

Where we eating, washing etc, and some people are sleeping. Here's the dinning area.

I am actually sleeping outside in what is known as an emergency caboose, and although it means I have to walk from building to building if I want a wee or to wash my teetch etc, the emergency cabooses are very cosy and above all quiet. Here are two views on my temporary home.

Inside there are four sleeping 'coffins', I am bottom left.

Inside my 'coffin' is really neat and cosy.

But the far end of the container is less organised.

Inside the modules, things are pretty much as they were when I was last here. The bar has new sofas.

The bar is empty because we don't have any alcohol or soft drinks this season. The cracks in the Brunt iceshelf mean we can't get a ship in, so everything we are using is already here or we have brought in by plane (which is eye wateringly expensive, so is limited to absolute essentials). Another change since I was last here is the addition of a dart board.

Nice.

Flight, Sky-Blu to Halley

It's about 1450km from Sky Blu to Halley, just over 5hrs 30mins flying time in a Twin Otter. Initially over mountains that were soon left behind.

Here is Vicki our pilot. She was one of the first ladies to winter at Halley in 1997 (as a meteorologist), several years later she returned to BAS as its first woman pilot.

And here's me at the controls to give here a quick break.

The flight is long enough to require a stop at a fuel depot at around halfway. This is just a load of drums that have been left there for the purpose. If you are lucky there isn't too much digging to get at them.

Rather surprisingly while we were there a BASLER from ALE dropped in just a few 100m away to set up their own fuel depot. It is hard to describe just how big and empty Antarctica is, and how surprising it is to share a small part of in in space and time with another.

After leaving the depot, the scenery was almost all ice.

Apart from a very small amount of rock, on which sits the Argentine station, Belgrano,surrounded bu ice falls and crevasses.

  Getting closer:

And above Belgrano:

Then more ice scenery for the next couple of hours.

Eventually the Brunt Iceshelf came into view, and we passed over the 1st chasm crack that has given us so many problems lately - but more on that later.

At Sky-Blu

So what was I doing at Sky-Blu? It was part of the UK Antarctic Meteorites project - see https://ukantarcticmeteorites.com/ for all the details, but aims to find buried, hidden iron meteorites in those blue ice areas that naturally concentrate meteorites. So while Katie and Julie are a few hundred miles south of Halley checking out likely blue ice areas (and finding lots of meteorites - 34 so far this season), Geoff and I are testing the giant metal detector that we will use to find the buried iron ones.

Here we are building it:

And here I am giving it its inaugural tow:

It has to be relatively robust as it needs to be towed for many hundreds of km over hard ice, there are some minor improvements to make but it basically works.

The key bit of testing was collecting data from the electronics for how it reacts to test samples that we had buried at various depths. This will allow the digital processing to be tuned back in Manchester so that we have optimal signal to noise.

Here it is all wired up.

The solar panels keep the batteries full so it is always ready to tow, although they do give some stability issues so we may put them at the campsite and swap a charged battery in/out each time it is used.

Sky Blu

Sky Blu is an area of blue ice right at the bottom of the peninsula. As its hard blue ice we can land planes using wheel which means we can get out DASH-7 there with its much higher payload than a Twin Otter. Sky-Blu is ideally placed to service to serve BAS's deep field program. Although, when we were there the ice didn't look very blue as it was covered with frost, still hard and slippy mind.

The infrastructure of Sky Blu consists of a few tents, huts, and underground garages.

Blue ice areas are always windy and hence feel cold, so having a warm welcoming tent to retreat into is almost essential. The reflex stoves keep the tent warm, solar panels provide power, with occasional use of a generator for high power items like the breadmaker!

And here is the camp manager, Tom, on domestics duties.

Sky-Blu has a team of three during that runs the camp and re-fuels the aircraft when needed. We doubled the population to 6, and on our last night two Twin Otters were present, stretching the population to a a cosy 13.

Flight to Sky-Blu

There has been quite a lot happen since my last post and I am now at Halley, but on the way to from Rothera I have not had any access to the internet, so this is the first of my catch up posts.

The flight to Sky-Blu started with reasonable views

But the weather was quite murky when land at Fossil Bluff to re-fuel.

The poor weather didn't dent Geoff and Marks excitement.

The views stayed poor until we reached Sky-Blu blue ice area where BAS has a field hub, and we planned to spend a few days.

Here is where I slept. A very cosy tent for four.

More on Sky-Blu in  the next post.....

Hurry up and wait

The plan was to fly to Sky Blu today, it takes about 4 hours by Twin Otter aircraft. A little less than 1.5 hours to Fossil Bluff where we refuel, and then a little more than 1.5 hours onwards to Sky Blu, plus of course the time needed to refuel.

Unfortunately, the weather is snowy at Rothera, Fossil Bluff and Sky Blu today so having rushed around to get all our equipment packed and after an early start to have breakfast and make the days sandwiches, we are now waiting until tomorrow.

Preparation, preparation, preparation...

Before heading into the field (as being away from station is known), there is a lot of preparation. All the safety and survival equipment obviously, but much of that is done for you. We have to prepare all our project equipment, unpack it hoe it was shipped, trial build and test it all. Here is Geoff and I putting the meteorite metal detector together - is this the largest metal detector in the world? Its 5M wide and we intend to drag it behind a skidoo at Sky Blu.

Although is been a long day, its such a lovely evening and despite it being time for bed really I just had to have a quick blast on one of the fat bikes here.

Back in Antarctica - part 2

En-forced relaxation in Punta was soon over and it was time to fly to Rothera station on BAS's inter-continental DASH7.

Boarding the Dash.

 

First Class Travel

The flight was cloudy with nothing to see, but arrival made up for it. Rothera has wonderful scenery, and lots of wildlife, this year there are lots more elephant seals here than usual.

Not much time for sightseeing as we have to get all our equipment ready for flying further south to Sky Blue.