Dai travels to Halley Research Station in Antarctica with the British Antarctic Survey - 15 degrees north of the South Pole
20 December 2008
We flew from London Heathrow airport on Monday 15 December, arriving at Cape Town in South Africa the following day. It took us all night and we had supper and breakfast on the plane. I didn’t get a wink of sleep because I had to make sure the Captain stayed awake all night. It was very exciting!
When we got to Cape Town, we stayed in a hotel for one night, right in the middle of the city, which was very busy and very noisy. The next day, RRS Ernest Shackleton arrived and was moored (that’s sea talk for parked) in the Victoria and Alfred dock, which is the main tourist area. Our ship was right outside the biggest, smartest hotel in town!
We had 2 more days in Cape Town and then set sail on the day you broke up for Christmas. We had a fantastic view of Cape Town and Table Mountain, which is the flat mountain on the left. When it is really cloudy, the top of the mountain is hidden in cloud and that is called the “Table Cloth”. On the right is the hill from which they fire a cannon every day at noon. Behind that is one called the Lion’s Head. It doesn’t look like it in the picture but if you see the hill from the other side, it looks just like a lion.
One of my friends took a picture of me at Cape Town. I will send it to you.
Signed
Dai the Dragon
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31 December 2008
It was a really nice day when we left Cape Town but it didn’t stay like that for long – oh dear! It was very, very rough and I was not at all well; I nearly turned green and some of the people I came to Halley with were very sick indeed. We had hurricane-force winds (Force 12 on the Beaufort Scale) and the seas were very, very high. I was really brave and struggled up to the bridge (that’s where the Captain stands at the top of the ship) and watched as the waves came over the front of the ship. Here’s a picture that shows how high the waves were.
In the picture I am wearing a special label that says: “Dai Dragon” and “Halley”. Everyone else had to label all their coats and boots, so I didn’t want to get lost.
For the last few days, the seas have got calmer as we get into pack ice. This is lots of floating ice floes. Whenever the ship bashes into them, there is a big crunching sound and they break up and float away. We have also seen some big icebergs. We even got stuck one night and had to keep bashing and bashing to get through the ice. We managed it, though, and will arrive at Halley today.
Signed
Dai the Dragon
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25th January 2009
I have been out and about watching what everyone else does and lending a hand where I can. A lot of the time, I have to be with the Base Commander (BC) in her office, helping sort all the paperwork out. Here’s a picture of me in the BC’s office. It’s very small and has 3 phones and a radio to keep in touch with everyone. Although there is lots of work to do in the officed, we try not to spend all day here because it’s much more fun being outside with everyone else
I have been helping my new friends with their work. We work from 8am until 6pm except on Saturday, when we finish at 4pm with “Scrub-out”; that’s when we clean the building we live in. We all have to help in the kitchen, drying up the dishes when they come out of the dishwasher – that’s where a dragon’s hot breath is really useful as I’m not much use with the tea towel!
In Scotland everyone celebrates Burns Night (Headmaster will explain what that is). Well, at Halley we did too. We had a special dinner with Haggis and one of my Scottish friends stood up and read a poem to the Haggis. After dinner we all went outside for the Highland Games. Here’s one of my friends “tossing the caber”. We don’t have tree-trunks, so had to use a heavy piece of wood instead.
The poles with flags on marked how far the wood was tossed before it fell to the ground. These were really heavy and my friend in the picture won this competition. We also had competitions for “throwing the boot” and tug of war.
Outside the main building at Halley is a signpost. It shows how far we are (in kilometres) from lots of places in the world. I will have to see if there is room on the post to add Trellech.
I am missing you all very much but am having a wonderful time at Halley.
Lots of love
Dai
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26th February 2009
I’ve had a really exciting time at Halley. The last 3 weeks have been very busy, getting the work finished and getting the Station ready for winter before we leave.
This picture shows the main platform in a “blow”, when the snow is whipped up by the wind and tries to cover everything. All the vehicles at Halley have tracks to help them move around and we all get to ride in most of them. I even helped to drive the huge tractor in the next picture. That’s the snow groomer on the back of it.
After the blow we had to do a lot of “grooming” – that’s when the tractor drags the snow groomer around so that the snow is flattened. That makes it a lot easier to walk and to drive along without too many bumpy bits getting in the way. This is really important when it’s cloudy and there are no shadows, so you can’t tell whether you are going along a flat bit, into a hole or up on to a mound of snow. You can see in these two pictures the difference between no contrast in the first one (where the surface looks flat but isn’t) and lots of contrast in the picture with the bulldozer. When the sun is shining and there are lots of shadows, it’s really easy to see all the holes and mounds.
All the way through the summer, we had the British Antarctic Survey aeroplanes calling at Halley on their way to work “in the field”; which is what it’s called when they are working hundreds of miles away and living in tents. Here is a picture of one of them about to leave. It has been quite cold (-10 degrees Centigrade) and you can see that the people in the picture are all wearing their cold-weather gear. Normally they would all have hats and gloves on, too.
We had an inspection by the Antarctic Treaty Inspection Team right at the end of the summer season. The last time that Halley was inspected was 1994 – so before any of you (or me) were born! It’s a bit like a School Inspection – they come to see how the Station is run, to make sure we are doing everything correctly and to make sure that we are looking after our environment properly. Each year the different countries that are party to the Treaty can go and inspect each other’s stations and our Team came from the Norwegian Station at Troll. See if you can spot that on a map of Antarctica – it’s north east of Halley, on the bit facing South Africa.
Dai the Dragon
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Leaving Halley Base February 2009
We have now left Halley and re-joined the ship, RRS Ernest Shackleton. In the week before we left, there was lots of work to do. We had to tidy the Station up, get everything ready for winter, get the cargo ready for the ship and pack our own bags. Here’s I am with my bags when we were lining them up in the hallway.
As well as all the work, we held a party. Some of the people who came to Halley with me will stay there for the winter. During the summer, they have been learning what to do from the people who were there last year, and last year’s winterers are now leaving with me. At the end of the summer, there is always a party to celebrate the end of the stay for one group and the start of winter for the next group. They all sat down to a very special dinner in the dining room. On the walls at the back of the room are photographs of all the people who have spent winters at Halley all the way back to 1957.
Halley is 14 kilometres from the coast (see if you can work out how many miles that is). Because we are not very near the sea, we don’t have many visitors but just before we left, two Adelie Penguins came up to the Station. In late summer, they moult (grow new feathers and get rid of the old ones) and that was what these two were doing. Aren’t they great? BUT - they are also very messy – just look at the trail of penguin pooh behind them in the snow!
On the day we left Halley, it was snowing quite hard and it was hard to see very far. We all climbed into the back of the sno-cats or on to the sledges with the bags for the ride down to the ship. It was very cold, so we needed our thick coats and hats.
When we got to the ship, look who was waiting to say goodbye – a group of Emperor Penguins!
We unloaded the bags from the sledge and they were lifted up on to the ship by crane. We then went up the gangway and all lined up at the side of the ship so that we could wave to the people who are staying behind for the winter. We also grabbed snow and showered them with snowballs before the ship moved away!
As the ship pulled away from the ice, all the people on the ship started to wave and shout and the winterers staying behind waved and lit flares. This is a traditional sending-off and in reply, the ship sounded its horn and also let off some flares, which went high into the sky.
You will have to look carefully at the next picture. It shows the back the ship (called the stern) and the path it carved through the ice as we left. In the distance you should just about be able to see the sno-cat and sledge before the winterers climbed back in and drove back to Halley for lunch and the start of nearly 10 months without seeing anyone else.
While we were at Halley, it was daylight all the time and the first sunset of the year was on 14 February. Since then the days have been getting shorter and from the middle of May until the middle of August there will be no daylight at all. As it gets darker, it also gets colder.
The winterers always have winter training trips and these started as soon as we left; they go camping in special tents, in an area where there is some climbing and some crevasses that they can go and look at and where they can practice their rope-work. The main purpose is to train them to be able to rescue each other if somebody gets into trouble but it’s also rather like a holiday because after a busy summer with lots of people about, now they will go out in very small groups do something completely different.
For us, the next stop will be Signy – see if you can spot that on the map. It is in the South Orkney Islands.
Dai the Dragon