Cape Town (Day 3)

The big task today was to check into our Antarctic flight. We checked in our bags and received the flight briefing at ALCI (Antarctic Logistics Centre International) here in Cape Town. The Ilyushin 76TD flight takes us to Novo and from there we will catch a Basler Turbo 67 (basically an MD DC3 with turbo props) to feed us into Halley. Novo is in the east and Halley is west of the Greenwich Meridian so there is quite a distance between the two bases which means that the weather can be a major factor on deciding when we can fly onto our destination.

So the Ilyushin flight is ready to go for tomorrow night. Weather is bad towards Halley so we may be spending a few days a Novo before we fly on. This doesn't sound so bad but we will not be able to get to our luggage so what spare clothing we take with us will have to do us for the duration. Such is the changeable nature of the weather in Antarctica we could be staying at Novo for maybe just one day or many, many days. So, it could get smelly.

The briefing we received today highlighted the possible weather issues and therefore appraised us of the possible delays. 

So we fly for Antarctica tomorrow night……..the last phase of the journey approaches.

Tonight the Halley team went for a meal at the world famous seafood bar, Panama Jacks. I'm not a big beef / steak fan but I went for a medium rare and what they delivered was out of this world. Lovely! The team going into Halley seems swell.

Ant, of Morrison construction, organised the Shark dive so that is now all going ahead. So that will be the last excursion I will have the chance to participate in before flying down south for my 16 month tour. Unfortunately, I will be setting the alarm for 4:30am so that I can partake. That's not so good.