Day 56 + 57

More unloading of cargo, today we made a good start on the 45 gallon drums, 700 offloaded in 12 hours, a new record for Halley.

Its been snowing fairly steadily for the passed couple of days, I'm told it doesn't snow here very often so it is unusual, especially for the summer. 

Offload will finish tomorrow then we’ll be moving onto loading rubbish, etc to take to the Faulklands.

 not a sign you see everyday

  sledges of cargo

  the shack

  me, yes wearing a lifejacket while skiing. It's in case you fall through a crack in the sea ice

Day 55

Day 2 of cargo work. We load sledges pulled behind large tracked vehicles, these are towed to the top of the ramp and an empty is brought back down to the ship. When three or four sledges are full, a larger tractor thows them to the base.

Temperature was colder today, although I still managed to get burnt.

  The crew and Fids xmas day, can you spot me?

  Matt of the antarctic

  The chief mate and I

  L- Matt snr Cadet, Mid- 3rd Mate, R-Matt jr

Day 54

  the sea ice and las resort attached to the ROV crane, if the ship starts moving, you can jump in there to be rescued.

  ships gangway and mooring line

  flags marking a crack and mooring line

  ramp up to caboose, marked with flags

  skiddoos

  penguins

Well we are here, ‘alongside’ at Halley. The actual base is approximately 10km away, we have moored to a big bit of sea ice in creek 3. The ship is tied to ‘deadmen’ (big fence posts)  hammered into the ice.

There are flags marking the danger areas on the ice and we are not allowed to walk very far as there are large cracks. If we want to venture up the cliff, we hitch a ride on one of the snow cats.

At the top of the ramp is a ‘caboose’ (a big portacabin) that is there primarily for safety, if the ice breaks away and the ship floats off, anybody left on the ice can make their way to the caboose and await rescue from the base.

Most of the FIDs are gone and so is a fair bit of cargo, the 24 hours of sunlight make it much less tiring than it was in Immingham.

Day 53

Merry Christmas from Antarctica.

Got up and went out onto the ice to stretch the legs and actually touch Antarctica.

Full Christmas lunch with everybody in the mess room then I was back on the bridge for 1630.

The ice image had shown that it was a clear run to Halley so we were to slowly make our way down on one engine to arrive in the morning.  That turned out not to be the case, myself and the third mate battled with the ice for 7 hours and found open water at midnight.

We had a bit of a treat as one of the leads we broke into had a pod of about 12 orcas and we followed them for 15 minutes.

Midnight Position  74° 48’S   025° 30’W

The plan is to be alongside Halley at 1000 in the morning then begin to offload all the cargo and FIDs.

  Ship stopped in ice

  Ice shelf (the small balck blur on the right is some people)

  The Shack

  Orcas

Day 52

The day was spent in open water, making good speed and cruising passed the shelf. We found a good spot to accidently get stuck into, engines running ahead slightly to hold us in for Christmas day.

This morning we went into a cove in the ice with many penguins and later we saw a group of orcas hunting.

ETA at Halley is 1000 26/12/11

We are ‘stuck’ in the ice and aiming for a game of football for Christmas eve, myself and the third mate are going to go for a cross country skiing session instead.

Day 51

  flat calm sea

  looking aft from the 'crows nest'

  mr penguin

  the ice shelf

  big crack!

Another good day of ice breaking, we got stopped a few times and had to ‘hammer’ the ice i.e. reverse and take a run up until it cracks then follow the crack. This evening we got into the shore lead which means we will be in open water for a few hundred miles.

This evening, I felt as if we had finally made it. We reached the iconic ice shelf, all is needed now is a few orcas.

Measuring the distance off the continent with the radar then comparing it to the chart shows a difference of four miles. The charted coastline is that of 1989 and of course the ice shifts so we record the coastline as we go to then send the data back to the hydrographic office. It’s the reverse of what a navigator would normally be doing!

Day 50

We reached thick pack today, ice breaking for most of the day.  The ship cannot break through if it looks completely covered, we need to go from gap to gap because we need to be able to push the ice into the gaps. If the ice is particularly thick and the ship slows dramatically with the chance of stopping completely, the aim is to follow the cracks that appear until you can get to open water again.  If there is a gap smaller than the beam of the ship then you aim to cut off one of the edges as opposed to going for the gap because there is a lot of pressure either side so if the ship goes into the gap it will get stuck, if you cut the ice off the edge, it gets pushed into the gap instead.

It is easy to get disorientated in the ice, following leads for the sake of following leads then suddenly your miles off track or pointing back the way you came. Its a balancing act between getting through to the open water parts and staying close to the track line. Icebergs are good to use as heading markers, if there are none about then its radar/ecdis/compass to keep you close to track.

The ship can break ice up to 4 meters thick, it achieves this by riding up on top of the ice then using the weight of the ship to break it and displace it either side.

Position @ midnight 68° 18’S    004° 28’W