A nICE New Year

A Happy New Year to all.

It has been 2 weeks or more since my last posting. Due mainly to relief taking place and not just because of Christmas.  Well, Christmas day came and went in the blink of an eye and no one noticed.

The Shackleton Ship arrived on Christmas day, 4 days late. bringing all the much needed relief of fresh(ish) fruit and veg, meats, dry goods and other essential supplies and everyone had a role to play.

Some where put on nights in order to keep the unloading continuous and speed up relief. This threw everyone out of sync. The night shift needed their dinner at the normal breakfast time, and their breakfast at the normal dinner time, which from a chefs perspective meant one of us getting up earlier to produce a dinner for the night shift before breakfast, then going on to produce the normal days food for the day shift, so by dinner time the day shift were sitting down to dinner with their colleagues who were just up for breakfast. Tie all that in with the fact that it is 24 hours daylight and your body clock is thrown into turmoil.             

The Shackleton eventually ties up at Creek 3 by chipping away the rough edges on the sea ice to create a flat edge in which to moor tight against. The Sno-cats and bulldozers are the vehicles used to tow the sledges on the sea ice as they are lighter and cover a larger surface area with their track. The sea ice under them is roughly 5 metres thick.

A Sno-cat being hooked up to a sledge ready to drive onto the sea ice to collect a waiting load

  All vehicles are accompanied by Skidoos when on the sea ice. It's a safety procedure, as they can scout round making sure the load is secure and stable and that there are no problems occuring with the ice.

Once the crane on the Shackleton has loaded the Sno-cat with it's cargo, the sledge is pulled to the top of the ramp. another safety procedure is for all drivers to drive with doors and sunroofs open while on the ice. This is to be able to abandon the vehicle should the Ice give way….. for the same reason, the Shackleton also has a large rope basket sitting on the Ice but attached to a winch. In an emergency personnel on the Ice can jump in and be winched to safety.

Once at the top of the ramp and safely on the Ice shelf the sledge is unhooked and  the Sno-cat goes off to attach another sledge and back onto the sea ice to collect another load from the Ship. This rotation is continuous.

Meanwhile the Mechanics have a real tough job keeping all vehicles fuelled and fully maintained. The caboose you see in this picture is like the command centre at the top of the ramp. It is also where you can get a much needed cup of tea.

Inside the caboose there is evidence of the sort of work that the Mechanics have to contend with. Oil checks to keep Generators running, sledges in and out, night and day, services to do on skidoos, challengers, john deers, bulldozers, not to mention the cranes and cherry pickers. And like the chefs the mechanics in the Garage are working while others enjoy time off. So many machines and only a handful of Mechs. They really do a tremendous Job.

 

The caboose is also the communications hub, you can see the arial in the picture so they can keep in direct contact with each vehicle and Halley comms back at base, they radio in every time one of the vehicles enters the sea ice and each time a vehicle leaves or returns from base.

Once a sledge has been dropped at the top of the ramp one of the Challengers picks it up and pulls it the 12 km to base camp, radioing in to tell comms that they are leaving the Creek with their load. Here one of the challengers is pulling a loaded sledge past the fuel containers as it starts the journey back to base.

The journey back with the relief site in the background

A lone sledge on the Brunt Ice shelf waiting to be used. The sky is changing all the time.

Once at base the Challenger pulling 3 sledges one with a container of frozen food, looks to position them. This was taken from my kitchen window. 

Beautifully positioned outside the Drewry kitchen.

After a delivery of dry goods outside the Drewry, positioned with great mastery by Nigel. I was given the opportunity of hitching a ride with Ryan to go and see the Shackleton moored at Creek 3. Of which i jumped at the chance, if only to escape the kitchen for a while.

I was told to go to the Laws kitchen and pick up some boxes of food that had to be delivered to the ship, and if i was going with Ryan i may as well take them down. So with the boxes of food i waited for Ryan to pick me up in the challenger. You can just see him coming between the red flags

The Challenger arrived and attached a sledge ready to take a load to the ship and i jump on board with my boxes.

I was in and we were off to the coast. Ryan is one of the Scientists here,but with all hands on deck he was helping the reef effort by driving one of the Challengers. I had a real good conversation with him, as it is Ryan's project that is monitoring the crack in the Ice shelf.

A view of the load we were pulling

When we got to the Caboose Brett came out to meet us and took the boxes off me to deliver to the ship. which gave me time to have a wander and take some photos.

Steve, one of the Mechanics checking a skidoo...

It's great, all this work going on and it's just not crowded. No one for a few thousand miles..

What a great way to ride to work

Not what i would call a really busy port.

This is what the UK needs in the snow, I think i'll have to get me one!

Or maybe one of these! I'll take it for a test drive.

Yep! definitely one of these….I'll take it..

Well with Ryan now gone back to base, i had to wait for Tim to arrive with another load for the ship and cadge a ride back with him. This picture shows him just arriving, and he is not towing a normal load.

Relief didn't stop, Dozers were still pulling sledges around and keeping the flag lines and roads clear of snow,

Snow management is a big Job at Halley, in order to keep things moving

And Mechanics were on the go constantly keeping the machines operational. The Mech in the picture is Andy.

John deers were still to-ing and fro-ing along the drum line

Containers were still being brought up and dropped at deignated points

And Challengers were still positioning them, ready for the guys to start opening them and delivering the contents to the appropriate departments

Meanwhile, in the Kitchen. A few fresh Items were being carried over and opened to see the quality.
 These peppers look ok on first Inspection

 The Freezers are starting to look a little healthier, with boxes coming in.

 Meat and Fish continue to arrive and space starts to become a premium.

 The cold room gets packed with Oranges, Apples, onions, Celery, Lettuce and lots more.

 This is inside the fridge looking out

The Kitchen itself becomes a dumping ground and things have to be moved in to prepare Lunch and Dinner, which still has to be done. Fresh potatoes in the foreground. Although we are finding a lot of them are rotten in the middle, and they are very watery when cooked.

The Bananas are pretty poor but we have to see what can be done with them.

 Ant thinking through the storage problems and what we can give for a desert that evening.

We take the Bananas on to the platform and peel them as they are covered with tiny fruit flies. Needless to say, they don't last long outside.

Solution to the Banana problem. As most of the fruit was mush they have been turned into Banoffi Pies for the evenings Pudding...And they did not last very long. They were nice though ....

Trolling through the peppers making sure they are dry and not rotting, it took a good 2 hours to sort out the fresh stuff, which to be honest is not the best quality, but we have to do the best we can with what we have. The next delivery will be Christmas 2011...Twelve months time.

Relief went on for 6 days and was finished by Thursday 30th December although the Shack did not sail until saturday the 1st Jan 2011. That was because the Halley team that had just done a winter season, had the opportunity of having dinner on the Ship to see the new year in, Ant the Chef being one of them.

So once into the new year the ship departed and the hard slog was over.

All that was left to do, was to get the night shift back onto days and re-synced. We as chefs had to start picking through all the fresh food and get rid of any moisture that could send food bad, and get back to some sort of normality. Whatever that is.

And now to a few pics of Penguins seen out and about during relief 

Enjoy..

 Creek 3 Ice cliff

 A nice crack that could break away at any time.

 Adelie Penguins

 Happy Feet

 Showing us how to dance.

And how to travel on Ice..

Walk this way..

Not Interested anymore

 Which way did he go ?

 Come back.....

 No way, I'm off...

Did you see which way he went??

There he is! Quick after him...

OMG! He's gone

Happy New Year

 We Balanced a glass of Red Wine at the top of the Halley Signpost as Midnight approached.

 

A few of us gathered by the signpost at midnight to see in the new year On Antarctica. It was very surreal. Amazing experience and very bright.

And Finally this was a shot of the wintering team for 2011. They started this summer season with me, but when i go back to the UK begining of March, they stay for the winter to keep the base running and then stay for the following summer season to hand over to the new summer team. They then go home with them in March 2012.... Good luck guys....