Russ arrives home.

Phil and Amélie fly Punta Arenas to Rothera on the Dash-7. Russ heads North, Punta Arenas to Santiago de Chile for the overnight flight to Madrid.

Russ starts his journey North on the Dash-7 flying to Punta Arenas. A sub 4 hour flight due to tail winds up to 70 knots.

Phil and Amelie arrived safely in Punta Arenas and met Russ in the evening.

Tom arrives back in the UK.

A busy and productive last day. Hangar tided up and boxes all packed away. Humicap sensor looked at and adjusted to make readings more believable. Hard disk mirror created for the new MASIN PC and inserted into the spare. Labview re-installed in the old MASIN PC so that fieldpoint works properly in case the new machines continue to give trouble. UPS rack unit constructed and wired to run everything switched through the Synchroniser Unit i.e. both PCs and screen.

Ian finished making the Lithium battery canister supports for the tall OFCAP masts.

Weighed all the Larsen mast and other poles. Science load to be flown to Larsen camp currently totals 4000 lbs with the IMAU cargo, tents and living equipment to be added to that.

Phil and Amélie left from Heathrow this morning to fly to Punta Arenas via Madrid and Santiago de Chile. Alex arrived in the UK today winning the race between her, Tom and Russ by three different routes back to the UK!

A day back working on MASIN equipment today. We have been unable to make the new CAPS PCs work with the the serial image acquisition card, so the cards were all replaced in the old PC and confirmed that everything was working. The flight rack slides were reconfigured to take the CAPS PC.

The GRIMM instrument was mounted on a board that will sit on the top of the rack and the logging software loaded onto the CAPS PC.

The CPC was also bolted down onto a rack mount tray that will sit where the LICOR instrument usually is as this has gone to Bird Island. The CPC logging screen was reduced in size to make it easier to see all three instrument screens at the same time. The PC was run to check that it could happily log all three instruments at the same time.

Ian constructed the shower boards for Larsen camp. PASIN made a flight over the flask glacier.

Alex left Falklands early in the morning on a flight to UK via Ascension. Tom left later to fly to Punta Arenas to make his way home via Santiago de Chile and Madrid.

VP-FBL developed a fault meaning that PASIN are unable to fly until a spare part arrives.

Back up the hill to the caboose again today with Ian and Ian. We finished rigging the mast and winched it up. We had the derrick guys just right and it went up really straight first time. None of the springs in the derrick guys were at full stretch.

We then fitted the top boom and weighted the mast with two sets of spare turnbuckles to simulate the weight of the battery boxes and winched it up again. .

This time a couple of the top springs did extend until their stops. The top of the mast was also more unstable until the main temporary guys were moved around once it was up.

Tamsin came up in the afternoon to see the winching operation once more before we lowered the mast for the last time and de-rigged it. All the guys were coiled with the deadends still in position marking their length and attached to the guy plates and labelled.

The equipment was left up at the caboose. We also made the deadmen for the small AWSs and packed them ready to go. PASIN did a successful test flight.

Alex and Tom arrived into the Falklands today on JCR.

This morning we did a bit of trigonometry and made up rope triangles for right angled and equilateral triangles in order to mark out the mast anchor loacations on the ground. We finished making the temporary deadmen for the mast.

In the afternoon, Russ, Ian Hey and Ian Strachan took the remaining mast equipment up to the caboose near Vals.

We staked out the anchor locations and dug in the deadmen before starting to rig the guylines. We realised we couldn't complete this as we didn't have the thimbles. We later located some from the base mast supplies.

The Dash-7 flew runs to Sky Blu.

The two small AWS battery boxes were constructed today. The rsync/ftp file link between the OFCAP collaborators and Rothera was also correctly trialled. All the AWS leads were identified and placed in the correct boxes. One Zarges was packed for each small AWS ready for deployment/testing.

Ian Hey finished his last awayday on the Larsen with Dan. He also fitted the limiting cord to 15 springs ready for the first mast test.

Teh Dash-7 flew a successful test flight to Sky Blu and back.

Russ on gash duties. Sorted all OFCAP mast hardware. Identified mast components and split into 4 location piles.

Ian Hey walked around cargo locations and identified what will go where.

D7 finished other 2 engines.

The Dash-7 had a test flight this morning after work on the first propellor set. It seemed to go well and they started work on the second engine. There are rumours however that there arn't enough parts to fix all four!

MASIN PC running in the Lab. Some tweaks to set up. Unable to recreate problems from the aircraft. Aim to change power supplies and move UPS over.

Liz/Crispin finally got away, as far as Sky Blu at least.

PASIN installation going well. We turned on the Laser/IMU/Camera today and all are working. We have added RiSync which feeds NMEA GPS time to the Laser rather than all the typing of time/date that we had to do with the MASIN fit.

PASIN are currently waiting for copies of the approval certificates for their equipment fit to be sent from Cambridge for the mechanics here to sign it off!

JCR departed North with John Shears, Tom and Alex. Also Doug headed off in AZ to Halley bound eventually for South Pole before returning to Rothera in January for our OFCAP Project.

Dash-7 returned from Punta Arenas and the propellor engineer started work straight away. There was also a new engineer from Rocky Mountain to cover for Kevin and Mark who will be away with Doug/AZ and PASIN/BL.

Located and checked most of the OFCAP Project cargo. Leeds Sodar electronics was found to contain rust and water. Drying out. Not very hopeful.

Duplicate MASIN Ice-bell data disks created and checked.

PASIN laser and DSLR installation going well.

Alex and Tom joined JCR today. Dash-7 did not return due to headwind and crosswinds at Rothera.

The LICOR was configured and packed up as a portable instrument for consigning to Bird Island for Anna Jones. Tom and Alex will attempt to compare it with autoflux on JCR.

Ted, Jeremy and various people off of the cruise came up to base for a look around and also at the hangar.

We visited the ship in the evening with Doug for a drink with Mike (RO) and Ted.

Tom took a complete data disk for the MASIN Ice-bell work.

Relief continues. Dash-7 flew to Punta Arenas.

We should finish sorting and packing most of the MASIN kit today, keeping out the parts that need work.

Tom and Alex due to join the ship saturday pm.

OFCAP cargo starting to be offloaded and stored in end lab.

Ian Hey and Tamsin addressing OFCAP deadmen, shower boards and assigning batteries. Helium cylinders found and dug out.

Recovered all Ice-Bell DTU IMU data by downloading from internal memory.

JCR arrived this morning.

Alex and Tom flew a final flux flight for Alex with Mark piloting. The kit was all pulled off the aircraft and the aircraft re-rolled for other duties tomorrow.

We delayed the flight this morning so Hugh and Carl could see the laser in operation in the aircraft.

The Dash-7 is out of action. It will fly to Punta on friday to collect parts and an engineer. Each engine will need rebuilding at about 2 days per engine. No one is expected to leave Rothera via Dash-7 until at least Dec 11th/12th.

Tom will depart on JCR with Alex on sunday pm. Russ will remain at Rothera until Dash-7 is repaired to finish MASIN work and start the OFCAP preparations that Phil/Amelie would have been flying in to do.

Flew the final JCR floe this morning with Alex and Tom. New pilot Jon was flying with Mark in the right hand seat. Definately new science flying material there! A second flight in the afternoon measuring fluxes for Alex.

Russ covered the remainder of Alex's gash as she was flying.

Hoping for two flights today in Marguerite Bay. One to survey the latest floe being worked on from JCR and one concentrating on flux measurements for Alex. However Doug has finally gone down with the illness around base so we will have Mark back as pilot. However JCR were still searching for a suitable floe and then Rothera had too strong crosswinds to fly.

JCR will continue working until Dec 1st, pack on the 2nd and arrive Rothera on the 3rd. MASIN will probably give the aircraft back on 2nd as well. We have about 15 flying hours left we could use.

Alex was on gash and also gave a science talk in the evening, which went very well. The base were very interested about Marambio base.

Forecaster today has a day off but is on gash duties so only local flying. We waited for JCR to find a new floe to work on but they had not moored up by late afternoon so we did a second calibration flight over the Rothera buildings and runway. Carl flew with Tom, Russ and Doug to see the scanning laser in action ready for using with the PASIN fit.

Hugh, Carl and Tom Jordan arrived on the last Dash-7 flight ready to start the geophysics fit to BL and will look at how to mount the Laser.

We organised and archived the season's data so far.

JCR confirms today that they are heading North around to Marguerite Bay so Tom, Russ and Doug returned the aircraft to Rothera.

We discovered a problem with the timing of 'normal' MASIN instruments only being to the nearest 1 sec since installing the new computer before we went to Fossil Bluff. This was fixed in the flight back to Rothera.

Snow overnight with a gradual improvement during the day at Fossil Bluff. Jon and Mark came down to bring more fuel and also took Ben back to Rothera who was sufficiently recovered.

Tom and Doug returned and refuelled before heading out to JCR to survey the final two sites.

Russ and Glyn were left manning Fosssill Bluff. They discovered the second skidoo had developed the same fault of a broken cooling fan belt.

Not such good weather today. Light snow all night, continuing most of the day.

Al and Mark managed to bring more fuel in from Rothera around lunchtime and also a skidoo mechanic that had a new cooling fan and belt fitted while they waited before returning to Rothera.

Tom and Doug decided to fly knowing there was a high likelyhood of the poor weather at Fossil Bluff forcing them to divert to Rothera. They managed an hour out at one of the stations next to JCR near the Beethoven Peninsula which looks to have been successful. Then they had to choose to head North to Rothera where they spent the night.

Ironickly of course, the snow finally stopped at Fossil Bluff just about the time they would have been coming back, leaving Russ, Glyn and Ben with a brighter evening at the hut.

Some lower cloud today and a little slight snow but still a pretty nice day.

Dennis came down on the first twin otter to help out Kevin. However as Dennis hadn't done his field training, he had to come with a field assistant, in the form of Ben. On arrival Ben was complaining about his ears - having flown with a cold. On discussion with Rothera, he was advised he couldn't fly back. Therefore Glyn flew North as co-pilot.

Meanwhile Dennis and Mark fixed the MASIN aircraft and came to the hut for lunch. After lunch Tom headed out with Doug to fly to JCR but the engine required further attention by which time it would have been a very late return, so we binned it for the day.

Meanwhile Jon returned with Glyn and another field assistant to look after Dennis on his return. So that was goodbye to Kevin and Dennis. The MASIN aircraft was left all fueled up and ready for a quick departure tomorrow.

Luckily still good sunny weather at Fossil Bluff.

Most of the day was again spent replacing various parts of the engine on VP-FAZ to no avail. More spare parts were brought down to fix the second aircraft, thankfully with no problems for the third aircraft which made two visits including taking Alex back to Rothera.

The problem with the MASIN engine was finally traced to the main fuel controller which is a major half day job so attention was switched to at least getting the other aircraft home. By 10pm this was achieved and Mark and Al headed back to Rothera leaving Doug, Tom, Russ, Kevin and Glyn at Fossil Bluff.

Fine day at Rothera. Forecaster had his day off so not too much info for Tom and Doug.

Not brilliant weather at JCR today for flying but improved a little around lunchtime so Doug and Tom headed out to survey over JCR. However, on taxi, there was a problem indicated with one of the engines that required the attention of an engineer.

.

A flight was organised to take the engineer down with spare parts and also Russ, now fit and well enough to fly again.

A beautiful day for a flight down and a perfect landing. But upon stopping, hydraulic fluid was seen leaking from above one of the skis. Kevin, the engineer had a quick look to find a ruptured line. So, two aircraft out of action at Fossil Bluff.

The evening was spent attempting to fix the MASIN aircraft engine with the spares and robbing parts from the other aircraft. Alex and Tom prepared the evening meal for a rather full Fossil Bluff and people went to sleep wherever they could find space.

Alex and Doug flew out to JCR.

Tom moved down to Fossil Bluff, not least to get a good night's sleep away from Russ' coughing.

Russ still ill at Rothera. Got to grips with archiving all the data from Marambio and downloading all the images from the camera.

Dash-7 came South with yet more people including Hamish and Celine.

Dash-7 headed North with Rebecca.

JCR on station in Bellingshausen sea approx 71S 77W.

Alex and Doug set off from Fossil Bluff to fly to JCR but returned very shortly after due to it starting to snow at the ship.

Alex said she had been unable to get the Lidar to work since she left Rothera. With great difficulty over radio and Iridium phone, Tom and Russ managed to sort this out for her so should now be working.

Alex and Doug headed to Fossil Bluff.

Tom remains at Rothera for a few days to finish writing grant proposals and Russ is ill with a cold probably caught at Marambio and advised not to fly.

Polar 5 departed. Finished fitting computer and all instruments ground checked. Licor pump power supply to replace. Spot metering altered on camera. Added touchscreen control for camera PC. Still struggling to download from camera flash cards.

Tom on Gash.

Long range tank fitted. Equipment checked working after.

Polar 5 fitted skis. Sunny day, windy later.

Fitted new logging computer. Failed power relay in aircraft replaced.

Polar 5 arrived. MASIN aircraft on check. First good sunny day.

Started setting up the new logging PC rather than trying to fix the downward looking radiometers on the old one.

Tom set CAPS up on th bench and was relieved to see all was well.

Departed a sunny Marambio early morning to return to a snowy and windy Rothera.

The aircraft went on check. We off loaded all our personal gear and set about downloading and archiving the data.

Russ and Alex got their kit bags at last.

We turned around the aircraft at 5am as the wind had turned and increased.

We resorted to asking to use the HF Radio to talk to the ship, relaying via Rothera. We delayed a few times to allow them to get to a suitable floe and check the UAV was ok.

We took off for the second flight under bright conditions and surveyed an area around the ship. A good flight. We were passing over just as the AUV was being recovered.

Looked at Marambio photos in evening.

The base were happy to get appropriate people up for a Sunday morning departure. We made our first flight over the ship and surveyed a site close by.

Had a frustrating evening shouting into the satellite phone which kept dropping out. After the evening meal we chilled out drinking Mate (herbal tea like drink passed around).

Borek twin otter moved up to the skiway to fit skis. Dash-7 arrived with Tamsin and others.

We flew to Marambio. A good flight over the peninsula with a tail wind hitting 50kts at times. There were some stunning lenticular clouds and we flew right up what is left of the Larsen Ice Shelf and over the parts that are now sea.

The landing strip was very different to Rothera. A gravel and mud surface raised up on the top of Seymour island so you aim for the top of the cliffs just before touching down.

We had a good reception and lunch before setting out to fly over the ship. We were just taxiing when they called up to say we should not fly yet, so we parked up for the day.

At the Saturday night meal we exchanged gifts between the bases and were given certificates of visiting Marambio base. Luckily we had to go to bed before the Karaoke night.

Dash-7 went North today with Rene.

We fitted the BAT Probe and switched on the Licor.

The rear GPS antenna cabling was all changed to accomodate the GPS tagging for the camera and the dedicated power supply, all of which arrived on the Dash. One of the new computers which arrived was also fitted to control and store images from the camera.

The Licor pump power supply failed. Spare not yet fitted but we can use free flow through the inlet from the aircraft speed as we've used before.

Ongoing configuration problem affecting downward looking radiometers, IRT and heater controls for BAT etc. We've had this before and probably requires reinstall of all labview drivers.

Started packing for Marambio. Alex, Tom and Crispin sorted out software for planning flight patterns.

More wind and snow today.

The panel was completed and we just about finished fitting what we have.

Fitted seats, smoke hoods etc. Finished cabling but rack pc's not fast enough to log camera. Trying with a laptop.

Managed a test flight finishing about 10pm and data looked ok on the screens. Lots to learn to drive it all. No chance to process data yet.

Dash-7 arrived with our cargo but no time to open any of it.

Doug (pilot) helped open Fossil Bluff this morning. The weather at Marambio doesn't look good for the next couple of days.

Kevin completed the cutouts in the panel, so we were able to mount the camera and test the window and software for the lidar. This all checked out ok. Kevin now has the panel back to fit the stiffener plate.

We did a ground test of the equipment. One of the PCs failed to start and having changed the power supply it was traced to the internal backup battery going flat over the winter. There were also a couple of minor issues which were resolved.

The forecaster had his day off so there was no flying today and no Dash-7 from the Falklands with our remaining parts. It continued to snow for a large part of the day with fairly strong winds still anyway.

The day started off pretty good but the wind soon picked up and started snowing producing new drifts to walk into around base and a full blizzard.

The Dash-7 went North to the Falklands and we received official permission to visit and stay at the Argentinian base of Marambio in a few days.

We finished making new instrument brackets and drew up all the cutouts onto the outside panel for Kevin to work on. He is about half way through.

Alex helped out in the hangar this morning and did her field training in the afternoon.

We fitted the instrument rack and connected up all the usual instruments.

Today we started the instrument fit to the aircraft. Tom with the airmech Kevin bolted on most of the external sensors.

Rene and Russ worked on installing the laser scanner and INU (attitude system). However this soon became the Rothera version of scrapheap challenge as our thick aluminium sheet and brackets are still in the Falklands.

It turns out that Rothera also has a shortage so we were in scavenger mode searching the garage, the skips and Tom was even caught eyeing up the angle used as protection on some of the corridor wall corners. We finally ended up with some channel and some weather station snow stakes which we've almost finished turning into a sturdy mount for the scanner.

Alex arrived on the Dash-7 just in time for evening meal. She was also missing her Antarctic clothing so had to get some from the clothing store and came to see how we were getting on with the aircraft.

Happy Birthday Alex!

Tom and Russ started setting up the office and sorting the equipment left here over winter. We spoke with Ted on JCR and are aiming to be working around 65S 52W which would be a bit less than an hours flying from Marambio Station.

The Dash-7 with a fixed heating system headed North to Punta Arenas ready to collect Alex.

Tom and Russ completed their field training re-familiarisation course and made up sleeping bags for themselves and Alex.

Rene surveying in the corners of Admirals house and also along the runway with his GPSs.

Russ managed to get some clothes from the store as his kitbag is in the Falklands, but not before doing the field training outside in the snow!

There is a weather window at Rothera today in the evening so we are aiming to take off about 2pm Chile time (17:00 GMT). All 4 twin otters will also head for Rothera.

It looks like Alex had one small box stolen from her hold luggage between Santiago and Punta Arenas. It contained our new stopwatch for timing the camera and some other small parts. Hopefully nothing essential.

The heating in the back of the Dash-7 was broken so it was pretty cold for the passengers up at 20000ft and -45 C outside. Good conditioning!

All 5 aircraft and a Borek Twin Otter arrived safely and in time for Saturday evening meal.

Going to phone Ted on JCR in the morning.

A grey day in Punta Arenas.

Dash-7 came north yesterday but strong cross winds and poor visibility due to snowfall prevented us from heading to Rothera today.

We met with pilot Doug to talk through flight plans for the ICE-BELL project.

Alex arrived in the evening after a good flight and we had dinner together with Rene.

Dash-7 is in Rothera and should fly north to Punta Arenas today so we have a free day to explore. All 4 twin otters are also in Punta Arenas. Two, including the MASIN aircraft AZ have skis fitted ready to fly to Rothera.

Tom and Russ hired mountain bikes and explored along the coast as well as up the hill to Club Andino. We managed to persuade them that we could be trusted to hike up to the top of the hill and back without getting lost despite them not having marked all the trails since winter.

Had dinner with most of the pilots and Rene in Santino's.

We crossed the Andes early morning whilst being served breakfast before landing in Santiago de Chile.

Time passed quickly and we had lunch with the new pilot Al. We started with good intentions with salad but felt we had to have the traditional cheesecake. We did feel the quality wasn't quite as good as usual.

More importantly we found adaptor plugs for Chile much to Tom's relief that Russ won't need to start sticking wires into the desk lamps to charge his laptop!

Met up with Rene for the flight to Punta. Also several of the ALE staff including Mike PJ.

Spotted all 4 BAS twin otters at the airport, 1 borek twin otter and the Ice-Bridge aircraft. No DAsh-7 though.

Spent the night in Punta Arenas.

Tom and Russ departed BAS in a chaffeured car to Heathrow which made a pleasant change from the usual minibus. Slowly we met up with the rest of the party making their own ways to the airport. Time was spent shopping and eating before finally boarding the 2:30 hop to Madrid where we ate again in the usuall fast food place. The LAN/Iberia desks were open for once and we sorted out remaining boarding cards for the rest of our flights. We finally boarded the Santiago de Chile flight at midnight.