Winter...

We waved goodbye to the ship amidst bellows of orange smoke from our flares.
I drove a snowcat back up to a much quieter, more laid back, winter base.

Since then we've had the traditional melt tank party (13 of us crammed into a 1.5m square tank before the summer accomodation building is closed down for the season). Photos to come.

Tomorrow I'm off for a week of camping 50km from the base. Ice climbing, abseiling, exploring and trying not to get tooooooo cold. I will write at length of my adventures when I return. Sorry for the poor blog keeping. It can only get better!

Bye Bye.

Very soon we will be 18. Stranded for the next 10 months. The ship is here, and tomorrow I'll be waving her farewell until December.

This is me hanging out the backof a snowcat, as I arrived the other day to visit the Shackleton dentist (it's worth having a good check up as any dental work in the winter will have to be done by the doc, who's had a 3 day crash course!).

First Sunset of the Year

The Midnight Sun

We've only got a week or so more of 24 hour daylight here, before the sun first officially dips it's weary head below the horizon on Valentines day. This top photo was taken at midnight here, as a ghostly blanket of fog rolled across base from the coast. I'd spent the evening kite surfing/being dragged around completely out of control by a giant parachute. The wind was a bit strong for novices like myself that night, and I can't say that many of my jumps were intentional. I'll try and post some kiting photos soon, or see Dave's blog, I'm sure he's got some good ones.

Pretty clouds! The garden shed on stilts in the background is called BART, it's where we launch a weather balloon from every morning, come wind or shine, but on a good day like the one below, it's lovely watching it float off into the blue yonder.

Halley international Airport was jam packed last Friday, as the twin otter plane took us all for a bit of a sight seeing tour, to get an idea of what's outside of this little white bubble we live in. From the air we saw seals lazing about on the sea ice, eery blue caves in the ice cliffs at the coast, some massive icebergs bobbing about, and intricate patterns carved out by cracks in the ice as the ice shelf moves from land to sea.