A Day Out To The Coast

Thursday was my day off, so i volunteered for drum raising, which involved me doning my full polar gear, jumping on a sledge pulled by a converted John Deer tractor and heading off for the coast 15 kilometers away.

The job was to follow the line of oil drums all the way to the coast and dig them out of the ice as they had been buried. The drums are placed 250 meters apart and are there as a guide to find your way if the weather suddenly turns nasty. They mark the route to and from the sea ice where the Shackleton comes in. Once the drums had been dug out they were thrown onto the sledges ready to be replaced in thier new positions along the flag line that Kirk had set out yesterday.

The John Deer getting into position to attach the two sledges

Up and running, four drums dug up, only 48 more. on the top of the drivers cab are two sleeping systems, we had four all together. It is a safety requirement in case we had to dig in and bed down due to bad weather

 Matt, the base commander (standing) with Bryan sitting. Waiting for the next oil drum to dig out.
It is fantastic being pulled on a sledge in the middle of an ice desert, with nothing around.

Still waiting for the next drum

View from the back of the sledge with the Halley Camp just visible in the background.

View of the John Deer pulling the sledges, with the coast coming into view.

The next drum that needs digging out. The ice is more or less 1.5 miles thick below us.

The Coast line comes into view after nearly two hours. The colours and the sky change constantly

The oil Drums being loaded, my job was to stack them neatly on the sledge.

Bryan and Matt get digging. These drums if left will get buried within a season. Every year gets one to one and a half meters of compacted ice . So they are constantly drum raising.

Matt the base commander checking out the sea ice to see if it is stable enough to hold the Shackleton when it comes in with supplies.

The little red Hut on the left is a Caboose, that had to be pulled out of snow it was in. This is an emergency hut, that contains 4 beds and emergency sleeping systems, as well as food rations and equipment. It is an essential part of the operations on Antarctica and you find these Cabooses dotted at all the main routes where field trips and scientists venture.

Matt Directing James the driver into position ready to pull the Caboose free.

The sledges are unhitched for James to pull out the Caboose. Just look at the vastness of where i am standing.
It is awesome.

This is a picture of the sea ice..The rough bits you can see is called Brash, this at the moment is about 1 metre thick, the ship will have now problem cutting through this to tie up on the Ice shelf which is the white ice you can see, this is about 5 metres thick and is a year old. (last years Ice)

View of the coast line, within minutes the colours have changed yet again. the temperature is -8 with a wind speed of 3.7 which gives a subjective temperature of approx -12.

The cliffs of the coast line with a layer of pack ice, a layer of  brash, then open water. amazing!

From left to right, Bryan, Matt and James enjoying the solitude.

The same cliffs with a different sky.

A closer look at the Brash. and up close they are approx 7 feet high. It is actually pack ice that has been broken and pushed towards the shelf causing peaks.

Kirk, our GA field expert standing along side. Kirk goes in first to make sure underfoot is secure. If we decide to follow, we have to stay in his tracks. There are lots of crevasses that you could fall in.

Another view of the cliffs, from a different angle and again a different sky. I was a bit dissapointed that we did not see any penguins, but i did see their tracks. Kirk said he would take me on a one to one to see the penguins..So watch this space..

Back at the ranch and Pat and Chris are having a game of pool during their break.

The Laws building, showing the reason for the new build. The legs have been jacked up to their highest and can not go any more. Which means by next summer it will be buried. Hence tthe new modules of Halley VI

This is the Laws platform where we enter the building to work. The yellow drum in the picture, was filled with bread flour at the start of my employment 3 weeks ago. it is now empty.
Boy we go through some flour.....