The First Week

Well a week certainly passes quickly on the ice. I arrived at Halley on Monday the 22nd and it has been all go since then. The first day was a settling in day and the next was straight into work. The handover had begun. The rotation works something like this: The new meteorologist arrives in November and commences what is essentially a three to four month handover where the outgoing meteorologist shows the incoming meteorologist the ropes and all the tips and tricks required to get through the winter. By the end of March the outgoing meteorologist has left Antarctica and the eight month winter phase begins. Next November my replacement will arrive and the cycle will start again.

Halley V was built in the early 90's and is the culmination of all the lessons learned from Halley's I,II, III and IV. The base is coming to the end of it's working life and by next year the Haley VI site should be ready with the completed modules being towed to the new site. So I may be the last meteorologist to winter at Halley V.

Halley V consists of an accommodation and support platform called the Laws platform.

All current meteorological science is conducted from the Simpson platform. The Simpson is essentially 'the office'.

There's also the Bart platform which we launch a weather balloon from daily.

Richard Sands is the outgoing Meteorologist / Electronic Engineer. The Met job with BAS was his first job since graduating from Girton College in Cambridge. He's a very talented (if not gifted), bright and positive individual who has been an absolute pleasure to work with. I'm looking forward to working with Richard over the next few months and I'm absolutely sure the handover will be a smooth one.

Halley is very, very busy at the moment. The construction of Haley VI has seen the arrival of tradesmen and engineers from Morrison Construction who are contracted to undertake the construction. Halley V was designed to accommodate about seventy individuals. The construction season see's this number swell to well over one hundred. With so many people living in close quarters and the base facilities designed only to cope with seventy, patience and understanding is the order of the day. It should be noted here that the chef's are doing a cracking job!

The last week has seen all the Halley VI modules being pulled from their snowy bed. The move of the big red module was very impressive indeed.

An interesting, hidden feature of Halley V is the service tunnel system. Thirty five meters down under the snow and ice, the tunnels transport essential services like heat and electricity to the various Halley platforms (like the Simpson platform where I work). Telecoms are routed through them and the fuel that is required to make Halley V a working reality is stored here too.

The melt tank silo, where ice and snow are melted to provide the base with water, is also part of this system. Parts of the metal silo are now like an ice cave. The ice crystal structures are mesmerising.