The last part of our cruise is a trip to Rothera on Adelaide Island – the main British base in Antarctica.
During the summer there are as many as 120 people living here, but over winter this number is reduced to around 20. We are the last ship into Rothera before the winter and have come to re-supply the base as well as take out large quantities of empty fuel drums and all the waste that get shipped out.
We are also picking up an extra 19 passengers some of whom have been at Rothera for the last two and a half years.
It already felt distinctly wintry when we arrived at Rothera with everything being covered in several inches of snow. Immediately after arrival the large task of unloading all the cargo began. This is not an enviable job in Antarctic conditions, the minute the wind picks up it becomes bitterly cold and this was accompanied with heavy snow showers.
Luckily we were all given plenty of free time to also explore Rothera. The base essentially consists of about five large building with living quarters, offices and labs and then about three sheds for equipment as well as a large aircraft hanger and runway (overrun on this and one ends up in the sea!).
Like most of the Antarctic Peninsula, the bay around Rothera is incredibly spectacular and I doubt whether I can do it justice here.
All around are towering steep mountains that disappear into the clouds with huge glaciers flowing around them and down to the sea where they form 50-foot ice cliffs. Many of the smaller inlets around the coast are choked with icebergs. Everything here is on a massive scale.
A walk around Rothera Point passes several seal and penguin colonies. There are Weddell, Elephant and Fur seals. Fur seals are very aggressive on land and will attack if one gets too close and believe me when I say they can move fast.
One has to shout at them and bang rocks together to scare them off, quite a daunting experience at first.
There are few things in life that I enjoy more than skiing, so you can imagine how excited I was at also being given the opportunity to ski in Antarctica. This was not cross-country skiing either – this was proper downhill skiing in deep powder snow.
There is a large snow ramp behind Rothera leading up to a steep ridge, which is the main skiing area. It is most probably a very unique ski run in that it not only finishes on a beach but one also has to ski round seals at the bottom.
Instead of a conventional ski tow or chairlift one gets towed uphill behind a skidoo, this is almost as fun (and fast) as skiing down again. We also went further a field out of sight of the base inland a bit where one really gets the feel of how extraordinary this place really is. All round was white snow-capped peaks and endless icefields. There was so much powder our skidoo got totally buried while towing us uphill and we had to dig it out.
We then went and had tea, biscuits, chocolate and wine in a small hut about 3kms from the base. Nearly all the food at Rothera is past its best before date by anything between three to 10 years because it will have sat somewhere frozen solid for most of this time, the chocolate we had in the hut was relatively fresh with a best before sometimes back in 2002.
The wine, which is called “French Rabbit”, comes in plastic cartons and would probably pass as cooking wine back home, but is just about palatable when drunk very chilled, which is handy in this part of the world.
In the evening it was nice to be able to go to a different bar from the one on our ship, the one at Rothera has very comfy sofas, pool table and darts and it was good to chat and meet the people over wintering at the base. We also had the opportunity to post letters from the official post office which has its very own British Antarctic Territory stamps and also buy a couple of souvenirs from the shop.
After a hectic few days of storing and loading cargo it was time to go. All the winterers came down to the pier to see us off, we are the last thing they will see from the outside world for the next seven months.
I imagine this must be quite a daunting thought for those left behind. Many flares and smoke signal are let off as we sail away.
Our trip back to the Falklands takes us up the west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula, as far as scenery is concerned this is some of the best in Antarctica because the coastline is dominated by impressive mountain ranges.
Yesterday we travelled past the mouth of the Lemaine Channel and then north along the Bransfield Straight and Gerlach Straight. Stormy weather overnight and plummeting temperatures meant that the ship has become totally encrusted with ice.
We are now crossing the Drake Passage on our final leg of this journey and unlike our first crossing south it is calm and sunny.
It gives me time to reflect on a trip of a lifetime.
I have experienced huge storms and gale force winds, sailed through thick sea ice, been the furthest south of any British vessel, collected sediment cores from both the shelf and deep ocean, charted new waters, seen whales up close as well as numerous penguins, seals, albatrosses, petrels and scary looking fish trawled from the sea bed, visited Pine Island Bay and Rothera and sailed up the west side of the Antarctic Peninsula, seen icebergs the size of small countries, learned to play both darts and table tennis on a rolling ship, skied in the Antarctic, written part of my thesis to keep my supervisors happy, built up an unhealthy pre-dinner gin and tonic habit and after-dinner port habit, experienced true cold, learned how to get in and out a top bunk which has about as much space as a reasonably sized coffin, learned to work with severe sleep deprivation, found a place that is marginally colder than Aberdeen and finally met and worked with some great people.
My only hope is that one day I will get the opportunity to return to this magnificent continent.
Benedict Reinardy, 27, from Aberdeen, is a marine geologist, currently in the third year of his PhD. He obtained a BSc Hons in Geography at St Andrews University and an MSc in Quaternary Science at Royal Holloway, University of London before coming to join the Swansea Glaciology Group in the School of Environment and Society. Benedict’s research involves the analysis of the detailed glacial record within marine sediments around the Antarctic Peninsula. His data will contribute to research into whether the past changes within the Antarctic ice sheet can be used as modern analogues for the changes that are currently being observed.