Monday 22 November 2004
A flying visit
This week we had some visitors, the first new faces I've seen since mid-February when the ship sailed off and left the eighteen of us here for the winter. Two German planes stopped off here on their way to their base 700km further along the coast. In the past they've ended up staying at Halley for a few days while they wait for a weather window, but this time they decided to make the journey in one go. They stayed for a couple of hours while we re-fueled their planes before continuing on their journey. They never even got as far as the base as the skiway is a couple of kilometres away so in some ways it feels almost like they were never here.
Since they'd come from Rothera, one of the other British bases further north on the peninsula, they were able to bring us a bit of post. It was fantastic to get mail, even if much of it was nine months old so many thanks to everyone who took the time to drop me a line. Speaking of post, the window is once again about to open so if you feel like writing my address is: Halley Research Station, British Antarctic Survey, Stanley, Falkland Islands, South Atlantic. Anything sent before the beginning of February should get in this season - after that I won't get it until this time next year!
So it's back to winter mode for us for a while longer. The first BAS plane is due around the 5th of December but it is looking like they might be delayed for longer than that - bad weather at Rothera has resulted in delays in the flights from the Falklands. Then around Christmas the ship is due to arrive, assuming they don't have any trouble breaking through the ice in the Weddell Sea.
Posted by simon at 3:06 PM