No F*****g
Surrender

serenely by, as we flashed over them at 150 knots. In a word ----- TREMENDOUS.

We landed at Rothera and I got out of the plane. To say I was awe-struck would be a mild understatement. It was so beautiful that I was lost for words (not usual for me I am sure you will agree).The next few days were a hectic jumble with my learning curve going vertical. I was introduced to skidoos and to Nansen sledges, both of which were to figure fairly prominently in my summer. After 9 days I packed my rucksack and flew about 500 miles down the Antarctic Peninsula. I went to a place called "Sky Blue", where we use a 600-metre strip of blue ice as a runway. The planes can land on this using wheels rather than skis, which has the advantage of increasing the weight they can carry and allowing us to use the bigger non ski equipped Dash 7 aircraft. Of course landing on ice is not without interest!

This was my introduction to the real Antarctic and it was rather colder than Rothera. The other people on my project were still preparing equipment at base and so I had a few days of refuelling planes and keeping the runway snow free. This latter job was time consuming but not as bad as you might imagine as the wind does a good job of scouring the ice. The main task was digging out the depots of food, fuel and living equipment that had been placed there the previous year. It was at this stage that I came to appreciate that digging was to play a major part in my life. Indeed it is a major part of any polar hero's existence. Tents, skidoos, drums of fuel, sledges-- they all need dug out of the snow after any wind----- so nearly every day then!


At this stage I feel that a small geography lesson is appropriate. Look at the above map. Lesson over. For the mountaineers out there, the Ellsworth Mountains (that's the ones with Mt Vinson) are about 200 Km South of the Evans Ice Stream. The sticky up bit is called the Antarctic Peninsular and the rest is divided into West and East Antarctica. The division of these is roughly a line from the Ronne Ice Shelf to the Ross Sea.

Our project was to take place on the Evans Ice Stream, which is almost a natural division between the peninsula and the rest of the continent. It flows, at 2 metres a day, onto the Ronne, is the largest glacier in the world and is very, very flat. What we were looking at was the rock underneath the ice stream. The theory was/is that the Peninsula and West Antarctic were formed from different landmasses and were joined below the Evans.

I'm just going out etc etc.
In mid November the rest of our team turned up and we flew onto the ice stream. The BAS camping system is hardly light weight since even the tent weighs about 100 lbs. Even so the amount of equipment we were moving was a tad ridiculous. It

South Atlantic

Hello to one and all.

Many of you will know that I have endlessly promised a comprehensive, witty and informative letter. Well some people are just born liars I guess. In its place is this. As time is short, my typing is appalling and the bar is open in 12 hours time, I am writing a general letter to one and all. If you were one of the wonderful people that sent me a letter I will be writing to you individually as well (eventually (don't hold your breath)).

How did I get into this mess? 
As you may or may not know, the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), imposes an age limit of 35 on anybody applying to spend a Winter down South. Since I was approaching that I applied before it was too late and, to my surprise, got accepted. After hefty consideration (2 to 3 seconds) I decided to leave my safe and really quite exciting (oh yes?) Civil Service job and to become an intrepid polar hero instead. The best bit was seeing peoples' reactions when I handed in my notice. I still don't understand why most expressed relief!

What happened next?
After a short meeting, in Cambridge, with my fellow inmates; a course on explosives (how not to blow yourself up) and a week in Plymouth Hospital (what to do when you blow someone else up), I flew South for the summer.

We had a couple of days in the Falklands that were really good fun. We had hunt the penguin expeditions, a "drive landrovers like maniacs" rally and attempts to cut off limbs with newly issued and rather sharp knives. All good things come to an end however and a suggestion that we were required to do some work in the snow came as a nasty shock.

Thirteen of us clambered into a red aeroplane and flew south. For the first four hours it was quite boring, as sea looks the same everywhere. The last hour was a rather different story. We flew at about 500 feet down a narrow channel towards my future home. There were huge ice cliffs and towering peaks on either side. Below seals lay on the sea ice and icebergs floated

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