All entries under 'E-Base Story'

Download Signing off from the E-Base team

Music thanks to Audio Network

The ship has arrived and the E-Base team are boarding and leaving King George Island. It’s been an amazing and emotional 10 days and we hope that you’ve enjoyed following the expedition. Please adjust your sets as we join the IAE 2009 expedition.

Any time away from home can be tough. This is now well into our third week away from home for all of the E-Base team. I know that homesickness can be difficult for people and having spent a miserable week away at cub camp at the age of 7, I have bad memories of being away from home.

Everyone in the team here is amazing, each bringing their own personality and fun to the mix. Without them I could be back to my cub camp feelings again! The work we are doing doesn’t allow you to stop to think about life outside Antarctica for 5 minutes. So although I’m sure we all miss home, we are keeping ourselves very entertained in our work. I also personally want to thank my wonderful Jacqui and my great family for all their support. Without that I probably wouldn’t be here now.

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Lunch with the Uruguayans yesterday and this evening Alejo came round for tea, as Russell would say, so the evening meal rather than the hot drink. Alejo Contreras has supported 2041 for many years and is an Antarctic legend in his own right.

Stuart asked whether Alejo had been to the South Pole. ‘Yes, yes, seventeen times. Once was by walking, twice by skidoo and the rest was flying,’ was the casual reply.

He regaled us with tales of life in Antarctica, dropping into conversation such snippets as climbing Mount Vinson with Reinhold Messner, having a cup of tea with Prince Andrew and how to survive an avalanche.

Jonny has been filming interviews with him over the past couple of days and we will be putting up a video later this week. ‘There’s enough here for a full documentary,’ was Jonny’s first comment, reviewing the tapes this evening. Let’s hope someone commissions one soon!

It’s the weekend and a beautiful sunny day. The wind has been up and the turbines have been churning out up to 750W each - an amazing amount of power. But something seemed wrong with Kelly. There was no power coming through.

We had to wait for a lull in the wind. No one wanted to take down a wind turbine in full flow. The wind dropped and the team rushed out, bringing Kelly down and taking the head off to find out what was wrong. There seems to have been a small problem with friction between two of the plates, with the cable ties rubbing off, allowing some of the wiring to come loose and shorting the circuit.

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It’s only been a few days that we have been here and already we have slipped into routines. A wonderful breakfast of porridge with tinned fruit cocktail or yesterday’s special of chocolate porridge and pears starts the day off. Then it is off for the day’s work.

Now that we have a sustainable (fingers crossed) source of clean energy, our next challenge is to wire up the weather station and webcam, so that we can broadcast live video and weather data to the 2041 website 365 days a year.

Education has been a big focus for the team this year, whether it’s been Russ with his handy tips on energy conservation or Justin chatting up penguins or manfully stripping down to his thermals on a glacier, just so pupils can gain an insight into some of the lessons we can learn from this amazing continent.

If we can get the weather station and webcam hooked up to the internet, it will mean that there is a source of education about the Antarctic climate available year round. There won’t be the Iwo Jima heroics of getting the first turbine up this year, but there will definitely be cheers around the E-Base if we can provide a window on this amazing place.