Thursday, December 28, 2006



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!

14 comments:

Richmondo said...

Happy New Year!

Wish I could get a skidoo to work. Would sure beat the 36 Bus...

pillow said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
pillow said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Richmondo said...

He might have just brought a male chicken with him... that wouldn't be rude.

pillow said...

Happy New Year! Hope you enjoyed our drunken rendition of Auld Lang Syne - there was a terrible delay on the phone so sorry if I made very little sense (had nothing to do with the copious amount of booze I had imbibed). Afterwards everyone was asking loads of questions about you and all I could manage was: she's definitely in Antarctica and she's definitely still alive. Way!!! We all drank a toast anyway, felt very strange you not being here.

Richmondo said...

That's strange... I could have sworn someone used a rude word here somewhere. Guess I must've imagined it...

pillow said...

Weird that Andy, you must be getting that schizophrenia bug. I had that, was off work for a week...

Richmondo said...

Nah, I don't have that. The voices told me so. Have you got a job? I thought that was the exact opposite of a student... or is my memory letting me down again?

pillow said...

Why would I have a job? Jobs are for loosers.

Richmondo said...

Well, to be off work for a week, you'd have to... nevermind. I have a job and I'm not a loser. For example, I won £1.60 from my work lottery syndicate the other day. I'm unbeaten at Star Wars Trivial Pursuit. And just recently, I won a prize for having frighteningly large earlobes. All traits of a born winner, I think you'll agree...

Richmondo said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Richmondo said...

Hey, if you look at the Shackelton Webcam on the BAS website... I think the ship moved... or all the ice has melted in a couple of hours. Now that would be global warming...

Sohbet said...

www.ircask.com ircask.com sohbet sitesi üzerinden sohbet ve aşk odalarında sohbet edilebilir. ircask sohbet siteleri blog irc forum sohbet ekle islami sohbet galeri msn mp3 güzel sözler chat directory

Unknown said...

So great new year in that place..
custom upholstered furniture