posted in retrospect when internet existed and speeds didn't cause me to have a meltdown and give up!
Who, What, When etc...
(November 2012, before I left)
I remember my prep school history teacher (a small ruddy-faced man
called Mr Prall who also taught rugby and kept us in a perpetual state of
slightly terrified awe) telling us at school the important questions to ask of
an event were Who, What, When, Where and Why…as such that seems like a decent
place to start:
WHO – this guy:
(Beard length and state of hair subject to wild variability)
32, (when I left anyway), Emergency Department Dr.
Likes: ephemera, music, theatre, evidence, Martinis, wine, scarves,
Liverpool FC, science,
Dislikes: very little really, and they change on a daily basis…except…anything to do with ‘reality’
‘stars’ and Cheryl Cole.
WHAT – I’m off to be the doctor on the British Antarctic Survey
(BAS) base of Halley. One of the strangest medical jobs going I imagine…I shall
be responsible for monitoring and treating the physical and mental health of
the personnel on base (90-odd over summer and 13 over the Antarctic winter),
planning for medical emergencies, running major incident drills, training the
guys in first-aid and being around 24/7 to deal with any illness or injury that
may befall someone on base. Of course, it’s a base of (mostly) fit young types,
and with health and safety and kit vastly changed in recent years accidents are
much reduced and illness at a minimum, so much of the time I shouldn’t be too
stretched medically. Thankfully, my time will be filled with other roles such
as bin man (waste management co-ordinator, sorry), postmaster, aeroplane
assistant, and birthday cake decorator (the role for which I think I feel the
greatest pressure!).
I have support from the BAS Medical Unit based out of Derriford
Hospital in Plymouth, with consultants of pretty much all specialities
available 24hrs a day for those problems that I need advice with. They also
provide 6 months of training in disciplines we are unfamiliar with…even a crash
course in dentistry.
WHEN – November 2012 until May 2014…
cripes that’s a long time…indeed it is, and I shall be away for…
2 birthdays (of myself and most people I know), 2 Christmases, 2
New Years, lots of cricket and an Ashes test, the most part of 2 football
seasons, 2 Six Nations’, thousands of music, film and theatre releases...and a myriad of things I won't even know about until I get back!
I'm sailing down on the Royal Research Ship Ernest Shackleton, leaving Immingham and heading via Cape Town, taking about 50 days.
WHERE –
Antarctica…that big white bit on the bottom of the globe most
people ignore!
No Polar Bears!
More specifically, Halley 6 Base, Brunt Ice Shelf, Caird Coast, Antarctica. Lat.
75° 35′ S, Long. 26° 34′ W (ish…it’s on an ice shelf, so prone to move around a
bit!) but basically a long way from everywhere, with three and a half months of
perpetual darkness and winter temperatures of -50OC. It is arguably
the remotest year-round site staffed by any British organisation and the
somewhat apocryphal tale goes that it is easier to evacuate a casualty from the
international space station than to bring someone out of Halley in the
winter…which puts a bit of extra pressure on my job then!
It was founded in 1956, for
the International Geophysical Year of 1957-58, by an expedition from
the Royal Society. The bay where the expedition decided to set up their
base was named Halley Bay, after the astronomer Edmond Halley. The name
was changed to Halley in 1977 as the original bay had disappeared due to
changes in the ice shelf. This shifting nature of the land on which Halley is
built has led to the need for a regular re-building of the base. There have now
been 6 incarnations of Halley, the most recent (Halley VI) having been
completed in 2012 to be opened officially in 2013. It looks mighty
impressive…no, this is not CGI or the TellyTubby’s new house, it will be mine
for a year from January!
It is the base from which the Ozone hole was
discovered. A few British scientists and an old piece of kit wrapped in a
blanket (the Dobson spectrometer) picked up dips in ozone levels. In 1983, so
sure the old machine was on the blink a new one was obtained that revealed that
it was true and in fact half the ozone layer about Halley had disappeared. A
year later it was even deeper.
Of interest NASA were also looking for the hole
(as two American scientists had predicted CFCs would lead to it’s existence in
the 1970’s) but their stratospheric ozone layer monitoring satellites and
computer systems had ignored the data…dismissing it as unusual and unreliable!
Though the Dobson’s readings are still recorded
daily at Halley, there is now multiple high atmospheric, meteorological and clean air-related
studies going on that I don’t entirely understand, but will try and find out
more to post about at a later date.
WHY – “to strive, to seek, to find and not to
yield”…words of Tennyson from Ulysses, and what is inscribed on Scott’s (and of
course the other men who perished with him) memorial in Antarctica and in
Plymouth, which was right next door to where I was renting a flat while
training there. I had no idea when I moved in then went for a walk one day and
found his memorial in a park above a small lido.
Although the heroic days of Antarctic
exploration are over it is still the most challenging place to mount any kind
of expedition or locate a base, and that just lights fires in me all over.
It will also be a place of at times extreme
solitude and isolation. Having time to think, with no distractions…to the point
of light and noise being totally absent…with a seeming galaxy of time in which
to do it is terribly appealing. Not that I’m a reclusive hermit…far from it in
fact, and living so closely with the same 12 other people in near total isolation
is something I think I will find entertaining, unusual and fascinating.
Good grief, that just sounds like a bloody job
application, but is true!
Also…I just do! Something in me wants to and I can’t
really explain why, I just know it…and given the opportunity to do so just knew
I had to.
TTFN, more to come when I'm further South...and the internet lets me!
