Winter has started!

Well that's winter here now. The Shackleton sailed first thing in the morning, leaving 21 of us to spend the next 7 months together. No planes or ships till the end of october when the air unit arrive with planes, post and fruit and veg!

We gave the shack the traditional send-off with all the out of date flares we could muster then walked back to the main building trying to work out which one would be the mad one....



The other tradition of last call is the practical jokes our departing 'friends' leave us with. Previous efforts include changing the hinges to the other side of doors and changing the milk powder for potato powder. While we did get off pretty lightly this year, it did take us a while to find the 8-ball and food dye in the shower heads did catch a few folk out....

Once we got used to the idea of not seeing anyone else all winter, the german research ship, the Polar Stern, called to say they were sending a chopper over to drop off some field kit of ours they had on board. but now that's gone we really are on our own!