New Years Eve.

Through the day we went for a jolly on the ridged inflatables. An Adelie penguin jumped in our boat and I had to help it out.

The penguin stowaway.

Vicky our captain for the day .

This is a young male elephant seal that visited us he is huge these must be massive when they are adults.

Soup with his kite.

Went for a walk around the point last night and these pics are of some of the things I saw. Above me with a Weddle Seal.

Another Weddle Seal

A Adelie Penguin.

Another amazing ice burg.

A strange Christmas day, looking forward to mid winters day, when only 22 of us will be left and the celebrations last for a week. Thinking a lot of my children and even though I spoke to them I could here the excitement in their voices at what Santa had brought them ,wish I could have seen them.I think its an emotional time for all the people on base.
Any way Kilted up in Antarctica.

CHRISTMAS DAY ANTARCTIC STYLE 2006.

Cooking the lads a soup for lunch up at the kaboos,after a mornings hard snowboarding.

Christmas dinner at the base.

Fed and Watered.

Cyril our French chef standing in for the Queen, doing his speech.
What a laugh.

A quiet Christmas eve drink in the bar.

Before alcohol (above)
After alcohol (below)

May Be a few to many

I think there's a lesson somewhere.

The Band of Brothers doing it large.
Christmas Eve 2006.

Christmas Eve, Snowboarding at Vals, our local slope. Another beautiful day.

Jim on his hybrid snowboard, as you can tell from his helmet (filled with snow)he had come of a few times whilst I towed him behind a skidoo at full throttle. Much Respect.

Tiring work learning how to snowboard and it doesn't come without its falls.

Ali and Sue Ann doing fall arrest. Ali just about to fall down a cravasse .

Mad Liz and I demonstrating Jumaring back up from a cravasse.

What a great morning. What a place to have breakfast.

Beginning our jingly jangles (climbing course) Mad Liz teaching us Alpine Pairs, a safe way travelling across crevassed areas tied together.

Me all roped up

Andy with his jingly jangles

Scott of the Falklands.

Well our first camping training trip it was snowing but what a great place to camp. The tents and most of the equipment are the same design as the one's Scott used when he went on his South Pole expedition
.

The sledges are still made of wood and rope as they are easier to repair than modern materials.

Inside our tent they are always set up the same the same coloured boxes in the same place to make it easy to find things like food , fuel, radio . Out in the field you could be inside one of these tents for weeks if the weather takes a turn for the worst.

Andy snug and warm well tucked in.

I was surprised how warm the tents are I was far to hot.

Just some photos I took of the local wild life and scenery .

Chinstrap penguins on the runway.So comical to watch.

Different sea sculptured ice burgs.

Sleeping seal.

The second night here and we've had some of our training like local area familiarisation tour which takes us around the safe areas we can travel without a Field GA . We also had training on Skidoos and Gaters which are six wheel ATV's.

Adam went snowboarding and we just messed around on skidoos our snowboards haven't come off the ship yet. What a place to have fun.

We still have some out door survival training to do like crevasse rescue and camping skills.

This was the first glimpse I had of Rothera my home for the next 15 Months. I felt apprehensive at what lay ahead, but the minute we landed we had to unload the ship so I didn't have time to dwell.

This is the view from my accommodation block, NOT bad is it ? Glaciers,mountains the sea absolutely everything.

Andy,Adam and myself sat behind a hut just amazed at what we were looking at and how lucky we are.

Life boat training on the JCR.

Woke up to a dull day and broken sea ice. Not far from Rothera now.

I've enjoyed my time on the RRS James Clark Ross but I will be glad to get to the base.

Broken sea ice as far as the eye could see.