Sky Blu

A few weeks the Lawrence M Gould came to Rothera. The ship come in every year for a party and fortunately this year i got back from Sky Blu just in time. This ship coming in is one of the highlights of the season as the band usually gets together and we have a good Saturday night of drinking and dancing! The ships crew are mainly scientists carrying out CTD's and work on Krill in Antarctic waters. Mostly everyone on the ship is American and they seem to know how to enjoy themselves. The ship is dry whilst at sea so the first beers went down rather quickly!!


Back to Sky Blu again !! This time for only a week....or was that two Andy Barker......
Anyway i had a great time yet again and there have been many improvements at the base this year. With the input of the new machine the runway can now be cleared with little effort, new weather havens for comfortable sleeping arrangements and the building of a new under ground garage for winter storage of machines and equipment the base is completely different to 12 months ago.
Whilst there i was involved in the uplifts of the remaining field parties from the other side of the Elsworth mountains. We were blessed with good weather and worked no stop for about 50 hrs to get all the guys out. You can see above the huge amount of carg that was up lifted.

You can never tire of watching the Dash 7 on the Blue ice.

Once the cargo was back at Sky Blu the Dash 7 could load it on and take it back to Rothera.


Our new CAT machine for clearing the runway and general base snow maintenance. We have lots of attachments for the machine including a snowblower, snow blade, runway brush, bucket and pallet forks for loading barrels onto the planes easily.

Introduction of two new weather havens has provided the base with a heated garage for machine maintenance and comfortable sleeping quarters.


My bed for the stay. The one on the right...next to the heater !!
The temperature is starting to drop quite considerably now at the base. Whilst i was there it was a steady -15 but did get down to -25.


The new under ground garage build this season for storage or machinery over the winter period in a safe place away from the 100 knot winds on the surface.


Twin Otter refueling during the field part uplifts. Is it night or is it morning....No one knows????


My red taxi coming into land.


I did get a couple more flights over the Elsworths which are out of this world but this one was taken on the way back to Rothera of massive chunks of ice breaking out from the King George sound.