Moving the Caboose is a monthly thing during the winter to prevent it from being buried by the snowfall and drifting snow.

End of July already!!!

Well we see the end of July already and the next rounds of winter trips. Due to bad weather, they have been mainly restricted to base apart from the odd day trip.


Last Sunday Drew our field GA and myself went for a quick scramble up a route on Reptile ridge. It was great to eventually see the sun again after being without it for nearly three months.


Yes it really was that steep and i think we both had a bit of 'Disco' knee at one point!


I try and help the dive team out as much as i can with diving through the ice. This week i was chainsaw man cutting two new dive holes in South cove with a ridiculously large saw and more PPE than you could move in!! The ice was about 30cm thick!


We are now completely surrounded by the sea ice which is great. It looks like there is land for as far as the eye can see. When the ice gets to 20cm thick all over we will be able to take skidoos out on it and visit some of the islands usually only available by boat in the summer months.


Over the last two days we have had a really large dump of snow which is very welcome. We haven't been able to ski or board for what seems ages because of the hard snow and lack of powder, so when we get these conditions we make the most of it.

Nunatak

Swimming Penguins

Ice diving Vidio

Ice Diving

There are now two ice holes which have been cut in Hanger cove with the use of a chainsaw. These holes will enable the divers to carry on with there work over the winter. On Saturday i lent a hand in which was the first ice hole dive carried out down here this year.

Kelvin and Birgit just about to take the plunge to collect Brittle Stars for an experiment.

Jim on Com's and Allison reeling out the line which both divers are attached to.

Round the Point

Now we have sea ice in Hanger cove the GA's have started to drill it to check its depth so we can walk around on it.

Large pancake ice formed around the point

One of many beautiful red Sky's

Ice so clear that you can almost take a photo through

In the S**T !!

Well this week has been rather eventful so far. On Monday we discovered frozen waste pipes which go from our living accommodation down to the sewage treatment works. This involved Myself assisting Steve our base plumber in thoring out the pipes and then washing them through.
Being brought up on a dairy farm this job wasn't as unbearable as it may have been to others on base, however still not that pleasant!!
With temperatures of -18 and with a windchill of -30 the pipes were freezing just as fast as we could thor them out. But we eventually managed and the system was working again by Wednesday evening.

Cold Snap

Today we saw the coldest temperatures and highest winds since we all arrived back in December.
The lowest temperature was recorded at -16 Centigrade and the wind was recorded at 60 Knots!!
Just thank our lucky stars that we are not stuck out in a tent!

Cool clouds

These are the cool clouds that we see sometimes down here. They look luminous.
Proper explanation on what they are and how they are formed coming soon!!