HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I hope you all have a fantastic party tonight. On board the ship (and this will be my last post from the ship!) the party is going to be slightly subdued as we are now only 5 or so miles from arriving at Halley. Looks like work to unpack the ship and bring all the new supplies up to base will be kicking off tomorrow morning at 7ish, so my plan is to try and avoid the normal raging hangover, although the chances of that actually happening are probably quite slim. It's going to be a seventies party on board, and I'm planning to go dressed as a space hopper. Hmmm.

On our sunny Christmas morning we had a visitor, one of the twin otters (planes on skis) from Halley flew overhead to wish us a Merry Christmas and to look for a way through the ice.


Since Christmas we've been getting off the ship most days to play in the snow. The ship moors up to a nice solid chunk of ice and we either get taken ashore in a speed boat, or lowered over the side, clinging onto a giant fishing net type thing, called a 'Wor Geordie'. If anyone knows why it's called that, please let me know!

Down on the ice, in between snow ball fights we've had time for a bit of training. I was let loose on a skidoo (my main method of transport for the next year- great!), and also learned some rope work and rescue techniques for travelling on the ice. The picture below is me, honest.


Christmas dinner came a couple days late, but it was well worth the wait. We had a five course affair, with large quantities of red wine that was felt for days afterwards.


Finally, this is pretty similar to the view out the window at the minute, low stormy looking dark clouds, and lots and lots of ice. But we are edging closer and closer to Halley, and by the time you read this, I'll probably be up on base!