Winter Antics

Life in the sub-Antarctic means that a lot of the wildlife is sensible enough to avoid the coldest time of the year and leave our little island. That being said there is still plenty of wildlife around: leopard seals, wandering albatross, terns, pintails, petrels and even some fur seals stick around throughout winter giving us plenty of wildlife sightings and work.

A young tern enjoys enjoys resting on the ice in the bay

But still, there is certainly more time spent inside during the winter than during the summer and we use this time to complete all the paperwork and data entry from the previous season and begin the preparations for next season. Whilst there is a lot to be getting on with it is a change of pace from the very hectic summer months, which means we have more time in winter to get involved with some other activities.

Music video
Earlier in the winter the four of us on base, very much instigated by Lucy, made a music video for all our loved ones back home. It is difficult being away for 12 to 18 months and so every now and then we try and do something a bit different to let our loved ones know we are still thinking of them. On this occasion it was a little music video that was really good fun to make! See the video here.

Pro dancing without a doubt! (Photo courtesy of Lucy)

Midwinter film festival
Each year all the bases from all countries across the Antarctic continent and its associated islands are invited to take part in the midwinter film festival. This is a project where we are challenged with creating, filming, editing and producing a five minute film in just 48 hours. The best ones are then picked out through votes gathered from personnel across the bases.

This year the BI team decided upon a Game of Thrones theme - after all, winter is here! The best part about this film is the amount of fun it was creating it and messing around in the snow in fancy dress (although it was incredibly cold!). Every year certain items have to be included in the film, this year it was: a stethoscope, a mythical creature, an elephant noise, a catwalk scene and the line "may the force be with you!".

Yh well, the cold and isolation isn't getting to us, honest! (Photo courtesy of Ian)

The BI film can be viewed here and we are very proud of the outcome. It was also amazing to see the entries from other stations and it certainly looks like a great time was had by all involved!

Race across Antarctica
BAS hold a friendly competition each year challenging teams of 6, from their bases, from Cambridge or associated staff, to complete a race within 8 weeks. This race is a virtual race across Antarctica with targets of 4,800km or 9,600km as a team and 2,600km as individuals. The distance is covered by walking or by getting on our exercise machines (we have a rowing machine, treadmill and cycle machine on BI).

Each type of exercise is weighted differently according to effort so something like swimming (which is definitely one for the Cambridge based staff only!) is worth 10x the actual distance covered, whilst cycling is a simple 1x actual distance.

James giving me 'encouragement' (Photo courtesy of Lucy)

It works really well and provides plenty of fun within, let alone between, the teams. This year BI are thrilled to have been the first team to reach the 4,800km target! Plus with 10 days still to go and only 500km more to cover we hope to achieve the 9,600km target first as well. On an individual basis I managed to cross the 2,600km mark just in front of Ian as we became the first two to reach the individual distance as well.

It was the only trophy we could find! But it'll do :) (Photo courtesy of Lucy)

It is an excellent way of staying in shape before the field season really kicks off again on 1st September!

Other bits
Besides the competitions and events held between bases and within BAS there is also plenty going on just within our little team on BI. A lot of this is keeping the base well kept and doing works on it (like painting and deep cleans) in preparation for the new season; but one task I took on this year was sorting out the library! It may have been a bit weird to volunteer to sort out our books but at least now we can all pass a bit of time reading when we can better locate the books we want!

That is a lot of novels to alphabetize! (Photo courtesy of Lucy)