A Journey Begins...

posted in retrospect when internet existed and speeds didn't cause me to have a meltdown and give up!

Leaving The UK...from Immingham:

6th - 10th November 2012

Typical Immingham sunset no doubt

All journeys have to start somewhere.

And mine starts in MingMing. Not a terribly interesting place and one definitely better to leave from than find oneself arriving in. Like most heavy working ports it seems a most "wretched hive of scum and villainy", but did provide a beautiful sunset for the night I departed.

Leaving Immingham

We headed straight out into the North sea on a cold a rainy Tuesday morning passing through the enormous lock gates of the docks into the Humber...the gargantuan estuary that is an artery for so much of what comes into the UK from all corners of the globe, passing ships from Russia, China, Panama, Turkey, Spain and being dwarfed by the massive tankers and cargo ships, stacked the height small tower block with the bridge peaking out from above the topmost containers.

The first few days gave me a chance to unpack, find my way around the ship, get to know the crew and discover if I have a decent set of sea legs (thankfully it seems I do...no need for the Hyoscine patches and dry eyes and mouth they bring).

Ships have always seemed a slightly magic place to me. Floating towns with their own families (deck crew, engineers, chefs & stewards and officers), places and even language...I no longer have a room, but a cabin; the kitchen is a galley and dining room a mess room; I neither go to sleep nor wake up, 'I turn in' and 'turn to'; the floor is the deck and ceiling the deck-head...and of course left and right have no place on board!

From here down to Cape Town it'll just be me and the crew on board, picking up the 'passengers' destined for the Antarctic in Cape town...a journey of about 1 month. We shall skirt the coast of the UK, calling in at Portsmouth for some cargo then head out into the channel, through the Bay of Biscay, past the Canary Islands, across the equator (more on that and the strange ritual that goes with it later no doubt) then down Africa to Cape Town. From there it is just a short hop across the (notoriously rough) Southern Ocean, getting to Antarctica just after Christmas.

Ernie

The RRS Ernest Shackleton - A Ship with gender identity issues:

She is of course named after Shackleton the Antarctic hero of days gone by, who was indeed very much a man. Never-the-less when referring to the ship, Ernest is definitely a she - I checked with the Captain!

And quite quite lovely she is too. 

Technically she is a purpose built (in Norway) 80m long, 4,028 tonne, double hulled, ice strengthened logistics vessel, with a helipad, ROV facilities, dynamic positioning (4 thruster and an Azimuth engine) and some basic lab facilities...or DnV +1A1 ICEBREAKER ICE 05 EO HELIDK ICS DYNPOS-AUTR W1 (Research/Survey/Cargo)...but in reality she is a short, fat cargo ship that's good in the ice! Some would argue she's not the best looking vessel out there and being pretty heavy up front with a bow like a brick wall she does not ride the waves very smoothly when the sea is coming from the front...but on the whole she is utterly loveable.

Anyway, enough of me rambling on...here are some photos, for a brief guided tour of Ernest...if you're desperate to know more about her try here - BAS Ships Fact Sheet.

My Cabin bunk

My Cabin's study...one of the nicest rooms I've ever had, anywhere!

Gym in one of the holds

The Galley

Ship's Stores

Mess Room

The Ws

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 -50^OC. 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!