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Pete's Post - November 2004

After one 7-hour returned flight which got as far as the edge of the Antarctic circle, I finally made it to Scott Base last Saturday. We flew in a C141 Starlifter, which has webbing seats and very little leg-room. You sit facing the opposite row of people, and are so close to them that your feet need to be alternated with theirs. You must wear all your heavy ECW clothing (Extreme Cold Weather), despite the temperature in the aircraft reaching 29 degrees C.

When we landed it was minus 25 degrees, but it has since been unseasonably warm at -12 to -18 degrees.

We started our field training almost as soon as we arrived. This involves learning to self-arrest, kick steps, make a snow shelter etc. I definitely learned something. We slept the night in snow shelters and Antarctic tents, which are tall canvas pyramid shapes - just the same design as Scott and Shackleton used almost a hundred years ago.

We also learned how to assess the thickness of the sea ice by drilling through it with an hand auger and lowering a tape-measure through the hole. It needs to be at least 75cm thick to safely support a vehicle.

I had one afternoon of vehicle training, and can now drive a Hagglunds, which is an articulated tracked vehicle. It looks like one bulldozer towing another one, only there is no blade at the front. The other vehicle I can drive is a PistenBully. This is a snowgroomer with a passenger cab at the back. And no blade in front. Both vehicles are fun to drive.

I've only just started learning how to do my job. I do weather observations at 9am each morning. The instruments are inside, and in a box outside. It is sometimes uncomfortable writing down the data when you take your gloves off on a cold day, but we're tough down here. Might be a different story once it gets to -50 degrees though.

Most of the experiments measure atmospheric values by looking at what frequencies of light are absorbed by various chemicals in the air. Or they use radio energy reflections to see what is happening above us. The ozone layer is looking pretty good above us at the moment.

I've been allocated a couple of helicopter flights onto Mt Erebus to help carry batteries for the radio repeater station, but these keep getting cancelled due to high winds.

I went cross-country skiing on the sea ice after dinner last night. The sun is still setting for a few hours each night at about 11pm, so you have plenty of time to go out and play. In a few weeks the sun won't set at all. This sounds great, but you need to make sure you don't overdo things, because the work during the day is complex and important. When winter rolls around we will have permanent darkness, so we need to enjoy the sun while we can.

Pete de Joux from Antarctica