Claire of the Antarctic

It is not very often that I am warm whilst outside here in Antarctica, at least not sufficiently so to degarb clothes, but yesterday it was truly baking, zero degrees centigrade in fact, and without any breeze and with the sun directly upon us it was far too warm to remain wrapped up in Boiler suits, jumpers and down jackets. I was almost tempted to change to gain some more UV exposure and aid my Vitamin D levels! Alas I was too far from base for a costume change so no bikini shots today!

With my doctors hat on I must emphasise that since the ozone is already depleting above us, partially a result of our stunning nacreous clouds ( that femme fatale of the cloud world ) we all applied sunscreen prior to the shoot!

Some of the group were overwhelmed by the beauty of the day, as demonstrated by Dickie…

As it apt to happen living in a slightly remote community a local vernacular appears, of which you may only become aware when during conversation someone is rather confused by your turn of phrase, as happened today when I described the particularly dingle day we enjoyed yesterday. The weather has been rather bipolar of late; alternating raging storms with 40 knot winds and blowing snow with days of complete calm with clear blue skies and balmy temperatures, the latter being known locally as a dingle day.

A tradition of Antarctic winters is the creation of the winterers photograph; a shot of everyone on base taken on a film camera, developed on base, mounted and framed and eventually to reside in the hall of fame, the corridor upstairs in New Bransfield where photographs of the wintering teams since the early 1960s adorn the walls. The photograph seeks to capture the characters amongst the wintering team, and also some element of the winter. For us the specatacular icebergs in North Cove have been with us throughout winter and so Colette and MVT have been scouting out how to best captures these on film. On Friday they required some willing volunteers to aid planning for the photograph. The glorious day aided recruitment and so Dickie, Shaun, JJ and myself set out on the ice for the preparatory photoshoot.