The JCR has now left the base and the mad rush to complete relief has ended so it was time to get on with my module 3 training with will enable me to be able to co-pilot the twin otters and get away from the base and down to Sky Blue and Fossil Bluff in order to repair and maintain the machines at those bases. The training included erecting and camping out in a pyramid tent and cooking food from man food boxes using Primus stoves and Tilly lamps. With exceptional forward thinking we picked a particularly good camp site up at Vals, our local ski resort, so most of the evening was spent on the boards.
The pyramid tents are excellent. After erecting them you empty your personal bag. In your p bag you have a self inflating mattress, thick sheep skin rug and a very well insulated goose down sleeping bag. It really is very comfortable and i slept like a log all night.
After waking this morning. We cooked breakfast, took down the tents and then it was on with the next part. We have to learn all about ice travel and falling down crevasses. As you can see i had to carry a fair amount of gear including ice axes, climbing rope and all the jingly jangly things that i needed to rescue myself or my partner if one of us was to fall down a crevasse.
Scott (Of the Falklands) and myself practicing our descending and ascending on an ice cliff.
You may notice some genuine Antarctic beardage going on in some photos as razor blades are a bit of a commodity down here!
As we are now into the summer season here at Rothera a lot of the snow is melting around the base exposing the bare rock. All around the sea large lumps of ice are continuously breaking free and end up as icebergs floating in the ocean. You can just about make out the ripples in the water after a lump broke off earlier today whilst i was up on the mountains.
We also saw the return of the Dash 7 again today. I never tire watching the planes take off and land. There are usually at least three or four flights a day at the moment and we will continue to be very busy with the aircraft throughout the summer as so much time was lost earlier in the season with aircraft problems.