We had one of our most spectacular sunsets yet.

This is as low as the sun gets at the moment.
Sunset over the Bonner lab.

What can I say to describe this.

Sky on fire.

What a great day .

Antarctica.

Me next to the Twin Otter.

One of the crevasse fields we saw.

Going lower to have a better look.

Most of the way home we flew low, very low as you can see by this photo out of the cockpit. We skimmed Burgs , mountains and we buzzed San Martine a Argentinian Base .
Flying low was the best part of the day.

This is a view of the plateau, the mountains that are poking through the ice cap are over 7000ft
and only about 1000ft is visible.

We all get the chance to fly a Twin Otter aircraft, something that you wouldn't be able to do back home. It was an amazing experience something that I will never forget. Even just sitting in the cockpit whilst flying is great.

When landing the pilot makes a pass dragging the skies then he pulls up sharply this is to test how firm the snow is and to see if any crevasses open up. After he banks around to make the final approach .

The pilot and I dug the old battery box out of the snow and ice, it was about 2m deep. While the meteorologists where building the new station we took down the old one.

Loading the Twin Otter ready for our expedition out to a small Island in the Weddle Sea to put up a new automatic weather station. My pilot is Duncan I am co-pilot and our passengers are Meteorologists Cathy and Rob.

These are some of the sights I saw whilst flying over the Antarctic Peninsular.

The place is so vast and there are so many mountains and it's white.

These pictures are of us approaching the Dio Plateau

The plateau is over 6000ft and is an ice cap.

Deep in thought, it doesn't matter how many times I see the same view it's never the same twice. Now the sun is getting lower in the sky the night time colour fantastic. These photo's were taken at around 12 o'clock. Tomorrow I am co-piloting a Twin Otter aeroplane I am really looking forward to that.

Stunning.

A seal asleep on a small ice burg.

On mooring crew waiting for the RRS James Clark Ross to come in to port.
The ship supplies us with food and fuel the ship comes in three times in a summer to bring enough to last through the winter.

Relief is a busy time there's lots of building materials,food and fuel to take off the ship.

Some of the big machines used to help.

An enjoyable job.

THE ITN NEWS CREW "THE BIG MELT"

Lawrence McGinty, Mark Austin and Linda Cappa (BAS)

Steve Editing

ITN News filmed from our base live for five days hoping to bring to the attention of the world the real problem of global warming. The news clip where Mark Austin is in one of our boats next to an ice burg when a large chunk breaks off, and only through the expertise of Bernard the skipper saves the crew from being swept overboard by the resulting wave, is now on world wide TV. There ratings have gone up by more than one million, that's how interested people are about Antarctica.

To end the day HMS Endurance threw us a fantastic BBQ T-bone steaks the lot.

It's not very often you see a BBQ with ice burgs in the back ground. The ship's cooks did them proud.

After the BBQ we went indoors and the results of the days games were given out A DRAW. Then after that their band played and they were very good, its a pity they could not have stayed a couple of more days.
I must mention the Football they turned up in a team strip where our side was in work clothes, anyway they won 5-0.

HRH giving encouragement to the Forces.We were out numbered by 3 - 1in most events.

Most interesting pitch and put, we lost some balls that day. The helicopter in the back ground sunk in the snow down to it's belly .

The Forces were great fun most had never snowboarded or skied, it was so funny to watch some took 15 minutes or more to reach the bottom of our ski slope as they fell so often.

On the other hand some were very good.

Kids in Camouflage

HRH and party coming to see our winter Olympics British Antarctic Survey against the Royal Navel and Royal Marines. So far this has been one of the best days here, as it's been such good fun. Everyone was in good spirits this is the only chance the Sailors and Marines get to step foot on Antarctica.

One of the Marines competing in the down hill slalom.

This snow sculpture was done by one of the builders from Morrison's Construction.

HRH The Princess Royal unavailing a time capsule which will be opened in 2107. In front of our new Bransfield House (under construction)

HRH Princess Anne and Rear Admiral Tim Lorrance on skidoos

After landing late Princess Anne spends the night aboard HMS Endurance then in the morning she leaves the ship to go on a tour of the base.

They are give a tour around are base by Base Commander Steve and scientist Dicky.

She gets to speak to all the people on base, here listening to Kirk about surviving out doors in the freezing temperatures.

And here Briget (a marine biologist) is giving a talk at the Bonner Lab Aquarium.