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.