The summer season at Halley is the busiest, most important time in the Halley V calendar. Whilst the science and maintenance activities continue all year round it is during the long 24 hour days of summer that the work necessary to sustain absolutely every endeavour throughout the winter is carried out. Antarctica is a frozen desert that will not sustain land based life without external support. At the very least Halley V is dependant on food and fuel just to keep the base and personnel going. To keep the whole base and science in tip top shape other supplies are necessary e.g. tools, equipment spares, vehicles, gases. In fact, too many things to describe here. To keep the base running an annual exercise called 'relief' is undertaken. A British Antarctic Survey research vessel docks at the sea ice just off of the Brunt Ice Shelf. The supplies are unloaded and transported to the base which is some 20km away. The RSS (Royal Research Ship) Ernest Shackleton departed from Immingham in the UK some months ago and travelled via Portsmouth and Cape Town to pick up more passengers and cargo. It was due to arrive at Halley in mid December but heavy sea ice provided difficult navigating conditions which eventually delayed the Shackleton's arrival at Halley until December the 25th. Aye, that's Christmas Day. Heavy sea ice conditions have prevented the ship from reaching the Brunt Ice Shelf once before when, in 2002, the ship was unable to pass the Stancomb - Wills ice tongue. It subsequently docked at the Drescher Inlet about 200 miles away where a partial relief was carried out by Twin Otter's flying the supplies from the ship to Halley V (thanks to Andy Smith at www.Zfids.org.uk for this information). This type of supply line is limited and all but the heavier, awkwardly shaped items can be transported. Base supplies are stocked such that a base can survive by missing one relief. If Halley misses two reliefs then the base will probably have to be mothballed and restocked from scratch. The best option for getting all the supplies and materials in to Halley V in one go is by ship.
The RSS Ernest Shackleton arrived on Christmas afternoon and the first big job was to get the ship moored onto the sea ice at Creek 3. Sea ice can be very unstable and great attention was paid to Creek 3's condition prior to the Shackleton arriving. Heavy vehicles and cargo would be traversing the sea ice for many days so the sea ice at Creek 3 really had to be up to the job. Peoples lives depended on it and the Creek was rigorously inspected by the Field Assistant department over many weeks.
All the BAS staff at Halley V had a job to do. I was selected to work on the depot line and the fuel dumps. My love of drums would be further tested after the pleasures of raising the drum line to Windy Bay. There were other teams. The teams on the ship took care of getting the cargo off the Shackleton whilst the Halley V sea ice team got the cargo to the top of the ramp onto the Brunt. A vehicle mechanic support team was based here as well to enable a quick response to any vehicle breakdowns that could seriously hamper progress. The vehicle operators working on the Brunt delivered the cargo to the Halley V supply line where it was logged then either parked or distributed immediately. It was a twenty four hour operation with two shifts splitting the day evenly between them. Once the cargo was delivered the Shackleton would then receive Halley V's outgoing cargo such as recyclable waste and items that were being returned to Cambridge depot for whatever reason. And so the relief of Halley V began…….. I was working days from 7.30am to 7.30pm and the important task on the first full day was getting the food into it's appropriate storage. There was a lot of pallet work which took me back to my first job in the Safeway foodstore. The following night shift took care of the rest and when we took over from them the next day they had begun stacking the aviation fuel or Avtur into dumps. There were over 1200 drums of fuel being delivered with over 700 being dumped at Halley V and the rest being stored at the new Halley VI site. The team assembled for fuel dump duties was Antarctic legends Richard Sands, Mike Ramage, Bryan Brock, Nigel Blenkharn and Big Al Geach.
Nige and Mike would be transferring the drums from the sledge to the dump.
Big Al, Rich and myself would be stacking them.
And Bryan would be driving the machine.
Nigel was living the dream and his goal was to break the 12 hour stacking record. Over 700 was the target on day two and we charged on with our mission. Delivery after delivery arrived with little pause between loads. This is a testament to the efficiency of the operation on the whole. By the end of day two we had stacked 726 drums of Avtur. The record had been broken. Nigel was happy and I was dead beat.
We repeated the task at the Halley VI site the next day where we managed to move over 500 drums. No mean feat considering that the Halley VI site was 16km further on from Creek 3. One thing that really helped move the relief process along was the fantastic weather we enjoyed from start to finish. The Relief of Halley V was completed with the final load being delivered and loaded onto the Shackleton on New Years Eve. The RSS Ernest Shackleton arrived one week late but departed one day early. Christmas and New Year were essentially cancelled but the job got done. I've never see such dedication in people at a time of the year when they all should all be kicking back, relaxing and enjoying Christmas and New Year with their families. My hat comes off to the entire Halley V relief team and, for that matter, anyone else who finds themselves working in Antarctica over the festive period.
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Sunday 2 January 2011
Halley V and Halley VI Relief 2010
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