Today I spent quite a bit of time cleaning it was normal scrub out but seeing as the dining room and kitchen were such a mess I did a pre scrub out. The day seemed to dissappear with some morning boating which I did comms for and Matt drove the boat and then afternoon in the chippy shop.

I made a shelving unit for down sleeping bags in the travel store in my continued attempt to organise the room a little bit better. It is pretty rough as I used chipboard that was lying around and some thin ply that has a few holes in as it had been reclaimed from somewhere. After glueing and screwing it all together I suddenly got concerned it wouldn’t fit through the door and into the room however, Tommy and I managed to get it in with a little bit of shuffling.

Midwinter greeting cards from all the other Antarctic Bases.

Today we went back to work it was windy and rained during the night so the snow has washed away and left an ice rink outside the buildings! Matt took the engines off Alert and started stripping the transom so we can permanently make it higher to properly support the engines in their most efficient place. I worked on some carpentry for shelving in the field store and did some other odds and ends.

This evening we went to Carse House for a wine tasting and cheese evening organised by Katie. I bailed early as I am on earlies tomorrow and am tired. Decided to be boring and seeing as it is Friday will do fish and chips for dinner as everyone seems to like it on base.

The old hydro plant is to the right of me as you look at the picture and behind me in the distance the white building is our modern hyrdo plant. Despite favourable climate and topography hydro was not used at all the station. Grtiviken was the only station that used it long term and to its full potential. The hydro plant had 3 diesal generators to provide electricity for the near by refridgeration plant. Two pipes led from Gull Lake dam and turned three turbines and connected generators. There was also a small turbine in the station itself for winter use when staff numbers were lower.

These days most of our power comes from hydro in fact we use a very small percentage of it’s output. The remaining diesal boilers have been slated for removal and replacement with electric ones in the coming years. It does make us a bit lazy with turning off electrics as it seems like a limitless supply specially on rainy days such as today 🙂

Tommy made a sculpture out of sheet metal which is a replica of the tatoo which Katie has on her foot.

Matt Boat made a jewellry box for Ruth which is perfect as she makes jewellry it is lined with old South Georgia charts.

Believe it or not this was completely made by hand by Rob. He is very talented and made his own guitar at Rothera when working there. The ukelali (spelling!) was made for Tommy and sounds absolutely beautiful.

Matt Mech made Robert a hip flask with shot glasses and a funnel from shell casings recovered from the Falklands and off the HMS York.

Ruth made a collage for Ali with lots of pictures of South Georgia etc.

Katie made Rob two presents – a pin mug with reindeer antler as a handle and this cut out of South Georgia which must have taken quite a bit of patience to cut and sand.

Ali’s present to Sam – the hinges were beautifully made out of ebony and welding rod and inside are many pages to mount some of Sam’s stunning photos

I made Kieron two presents. Tommy is sitting in the chair – it was made from mahogony that washed up on the beach from the fishing wrecks on the Greene. Being beach timber it took a while to mill to the correct size pieces of wood. The second present was a wind scoop for his yacht to draw in fresh air while at the dock.

The present Sam made for Matt is stunning but unfortunately I dont have a picture it is a beautifully presented journal with her photos of time on base.

A tradition on Midwinter is to listen to a broadcast done by the BBC for BAS stations – see press release from BAS/BBC below. We crowded into the comms room with champagne to listen on HF at 7:30pm local time but it wasn’t that clear so Rob meanwhile downloaded from the internet and we listened again to it in the bar area.

Rob tuning in the HF to catch the broadcast

To listen to the special message compiled by the BBC click on the link below and listen out for celebrities Prof Brian Cox (06.25), Eddie Izzard (14.37) and Michael Palin (27.25).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/programmes/2011/06/110620_antarctic_midwinter_broadcast_2011.shtml

If you don’t have time to listen at the moment here’s what it says on the web page:

Produced and presented for an audience of just 43 – the brave and hardy scientists and technical staff who keep the Antarctic bases of the British Antarctic Survey running through the long, cold darkness of the polar winter – the Antarctic specials are possibly the World Service’s most unusual broadcasts.

Once a year, on 21 June, in the dark days of the southern winter, staff at the four Antarctic bases – Rothera, Halley, King Edward Point and Bird Island – cluster round their short-wave radios to hear the BBC present half an hour of music requests and special messages from their loved ones back home.

There’s special messages from surprise celebrity guests, and a selection of music that reveals a deep longing for sunshine.

This year the broadcast is presented by Martin Redfern, who was fortunate to spend a month in Antarctica three years ago, reporting on research and visiting field sites and the Rothera base.

As a result says Martin, “We feel we are talking to friends, we can imagine the scene down there and although we were only there for a few weeks in Summer, we know how food fantasies turn to salad and fresh fruit.”

Rob delivered me breakfast in bed starting with a hot chocolate with marshmallows and cream.

Followed by two perfectly made and shaped croissants

Second course on breakfast was a full cooked breakfast again delivered to my room by Rob – not a bad BC!

The midwinter presents laid out after opening – lots of talent – btw that is a musical instrument made by Rob for Tommy!

Kieron made me a half hull to scale from the architects drawings of our harbor launches.

After presents we all went for the midwinter swim!

All the Antarctic Bases will be celebrating Midwinter tomorrow and we create a photo greeting that then gets sent out to all the other bases. We have been receiving some really great ‘cards’ for the last week. Lots of excitement today with getting presents finished and because it is a holiday the weather is predictably miserable!

Tommy and I with the frozen Gull Lake below

Today a ship came in bearing fresh fruit and veg to compliment our midwinter dinner on tuesday and Tommy and I enjoyed some ski mountaineering. I also made a carrot cake and a bakewell tart as we are officially on holidays!

We worked our way up to Hodges Bowl skinning and then got to some section that were too steep to skin and both had to remove our skis/snowboard to make it to the plateau of a ridge under Narwhal. Unfortunately the lack of contrast and very hard crust with strastrugi made it hard going coming back down but we both had a ton of fun 🙂 Back in time to bio secure the fresh veg and get our mail fresh off the ship including Tommy’s belated birthday presents.

Tommy post hole digging up the slope towards Narwhal.

Due to a science cruise being brought forward we have decided to work wednesday afternoon, thursday and friday this week and postpone the activities that were meant for those days to when the two people who are going off on the cruise are back. So midwinter week will be divided over two week. Tomorrow morning we have a fishing boat in for inspection so we will be boating first thing and the rest of the day is left for people to finish off MWP. Tuesday will be a day full of activity so come back and look at the pictures if you are interested!

The building (350m2) I am standing in front of contained the engineering shop, blacksmith shop, foundry, plumber’s workshop, tinsmith shop, engineering offices and stores.

Many of the stores are still on their shelves neatly labelled and stacked (photo by Sam Crimmin). The machinery and equipment is the same as what you would find in any shops of that era – rows of metal drills, lathes, workbenches and travelling hoists. The blacksmith had a critical function as they constructed and repaird harpoons for whaling.

At present the engineer workshop has been made into a hanger and currently houses the two helicopters owned by the rat eradication team. The rotors are removed and they are all wrapped up in duvets!