Kelly’s being tricky

Some things run smoothly and some things don’t. This seems all the more poignant in Antarctica.

Yesterday we were blessed with our first full day in Bellingshausen and along with it, our first true success. The construction and installation of wind turbine number 1. We have christened her Paula after the UK greatest long distance runner and marathon world record holder, Paula Radcliffe. And boy does our Paula run well too! She is in it for the long haul. We have all been awestruck by her strength and speed, spinning against the incredible skyline of Bellinghausen. It therefore seemed fairly appropriate that we name turbine number 2 Kelly in honour of our other great UK runner, Kelly Holmes. We hoped she would bring us such good fortune.

Antarctica threw another of her surprises our way. We were greeted this morning to sub zero driving wind and rain, pounding against the windows. Visibility reduced to next to nothing. Today was definitely going to be tough.

We watched Paula’s blades feeding free and clean electricity into the E-Base as we trudged through the freezing mud. The action plan to follow yesterday’s success story and set Kelly on her way to victory. It all seemed so simple, but things did not run according to plan. Kelly’s location was downwind of Paula, to the east of the E-Base. Boulders dug into the ground to brace the anchor pins, seemed to be a winning combination yesterday, but when we tried the same thing today we dug into solid bedrock that could not be moved. Hours passed as we swung pick axes, shovelled soil and heaved boulders, but nothing seemed to work.

You can be as physically fit as you think possible, but the gym means nothing out here. The only thing that matters is trust in your team and their trust in you. If you heave, pull or swing at the wrong time, you put yourself and more importantly your team members at risk. It could be 24 hours or more before you see an Accident and Emergency ward. When someone gives an instruction, you listen.

We all pushed through the pain and with a moment of inspiration Jake and I came up with a possible way of solving the problem with the pins, with a combination of new pins, clay soil and well placed boulders. The turbine support pole was up and guide wires tensioned, but the light was fading fast. We all downed tools and retreated to prepare our makeshift evening meal. Muscles burning and backs aching from one of the most physical days of my life.

We finished off the day as polar opposite (no pun intended) as it had started as Antarctica had an ace up her sleeve. The driving wind and rain had passed and we were treated to a perfect sunset. Tomorrow is another day. I would like to say work will be straight forward, but I can tell you that just like the weather, Antarctica has lots more surprises in store for her short term tenants.

Justin
npower