apologies to everyone following my blog for the rubbishness of the updating situation recently - just to assure you that i have not run out of steam, and in fact am chock full of steam waiting to come out at high pressure like from an old kettle.
but i've just been away for a week on my second winter trip, (photos from that will be up soon), and i am also in the process of moving further blog episodes to my website at www.robertwebster.org since i have been neglecting to update that on account of the blog being here and blah blah blah...
i will post a link when its done in the next few days. cheers, rob
A view SW to Liotard with some nice lenticular altocumulus clouds above. These clouds are indicators of very high winds and often foreshadow dodgy weather! notice the edge of the sea-ice - our hopes of getting out on it have been shattered and have blown away with the ice towards the south. a few days ago there was total sea-ice cover (fast ice is the name given when its attached to the land), and the GAs were walking around on it, drilling holes and measuring it's thickness. it still remains to the north, but all the drilling process have to start again now, and it doesn't look too hopeful for getting sea-ice travel on my winter trip. never mind, i'm here for another year...! 
One of my jobs is to make sure the automatic weather stations that we run keep running and getting and storing numbers. But most of them are 1 or 2 twin otter flights away from here, and we service them in the summer season. this one is just a few kms from rothera so i visit it each week.
it's been a slow blog and photo week as you can probably tell... have had some pretty poor weather and i haven't been out too much. hoping that will change soon as the sun slowly increases it's influence on the day...
And our shadows were cast wherever we stood... Although we had to walk up a hill to see it, we were granted an audience with the Sun, at about 2 o'clock - the first glimpse for what seems like a long time. It came beaming at us through the gap between Stork Middle and Stork North, silhouetting Orca, and staying visible for about 20 mins. here's a few pictures - 
The Sun poking it's way through a mountain gap, the skiidoo tracks of other Sun-hunters cheese-wiring the plateau.
Tris and Pete looking North from a peak on reptile. Looking directly at the sun!
Tris enjoying a bit of UV despite the cold. He'd just had his HF radio set out and we were listening to a chap from France - unfortunately Tris's little 5 watt set wasn't powerful enough to respond. very nice day out. rob
a pic of Dickie (left) and Mark on the edge of the rapidly freezing sea. It was -15 that day and fairly calm, good conditions for sea ice formation. Today it's colder still... so, we're having a "beach party" tonight! just another excuse to drink cocktails and wear something slightly different, all in the name of fun. pictures from this one may be classified... and,
a bit of guitar picking with effects and a bit of fake slide guitar, made by sliding a microphone shaft up and down the fretboard. It was mostly improvised so the timing is not that solid, but i think it sounds quite nice...
sand - www.robertwebster.org/Tunes/Sand.mp3
(right click and save as...)
that's all for now, rob
The best yet nacreal (not sure if thats correct...) display. couldn't resist taking roughly 1000 photos. here are a few of the juiciest:
A few pics of the same thing. But i think you'll agree that the thing is pretty stunning - the closest we get (still hoping this isn't always true) to the beauty of the aurora, these nacreous clouds are pretty high up, above most of the weather, in the stratosphere. these are the best ones i've seen so far. 
Beautiful sunrise today, with a perfect calm sea. 
Last week, another perfect sky, the silhouette of the met tower weather station and stevenson screen containing "A Thermometer". Looking north north east.
The partial moon rising from behind the adelaide island mountains.
What's the point? the point is Rothera Point, as referenced in the name of this blog, and it takes about 45 minutes to walk right round the coast. I sometimes go round in lunch hour and today went for a closer look at the forming sea-ice. It's coming along OK, but it's frustratingly tenuous, since the first decent bit of wind from the north (prevailing direction) will blow it all out. It's been calm and cold for about a week now, so most of the sea is covered in some form of ice. Simply put, the sea surface kind of freezes into tiny little plate shaped ice crystals a few millimetres across, called frazil ice, and once there are lots of these the surface goes a bit slushy (grease ice). Wind and currents then turn the grease into roughly round "panckaes" of ice which then bash into to each other and give the characteristic upturned edges, a bit like giant water lillies that you might have seen in the hothouse of a botanic garden. Eventually the pancakes raft over each other and freeze, or they freeze together side by side, thicken from the bottom, and eventually you can drive vehicles on it... Fingers crossed. But the wind has the potential to ruin everything in a short time.
A Weddell seal, the nicest looking and friendliest of all the sea-mammals around here. Docile and quite happy to have their picture taken.
A pic taken this morning when the almost-full moon was making some dramatic lighting effects on the low stratus.
A photo taken by Matt of some beautiful nacreous clouds we saw a couple of weeks ago - these are stratospheric clouds, very high, and form when the temperatures up there get below -82 degrees C. They are rare, stunning, and very important in the study of ozone depletion events which affect the ozone hole. This is because the surfaces of these clouds provide perfect venues for chemical reactions to occur which destroy ozone. Our weather balloons get info about the level of the stratosphere and the temperatures up there for the Brains in Cambridge to analyze. My boss in Cambridge is Jon Shanklin - one of 3 guys that discovered the ozone hole in the first place and is still studying it.
A few photos from our midwinter pub crawl... all pictures not by me - i was sensible and left the camera in my room!
The gallant Gaul, stretching the leashes a bit like the Big Bang stretched space-time. Photo by Jim.
The GA bar - made out of the discarded corpses of previous drinks from previous places and times, reminding us all that despite the transitory nature of the hangover, the desire to have a nice pint of beer will endure until the end of the human race. Perhaps. The rocking chair there was made by Pete (head GA and general hardcore outdoor guy) out of bits of an old Nansen sledge that was decommisioned this year. Behind the bar is Roger Stillwell, bassist in our band, and another very decent sort of a fellow.
Boatman Jim "The Boatman" Elliott set up a bar in his boatshed by filling up a RIB with snow and all manner of tasty beverages. By this point, people were inclined towards making the snow into little spheres and throwing them. Photo uncredited...
Winter olympics - before the pub crawl we had a winter olympics sort of thing, with speed snow sculpture - a bit like ready-steady-cook, but i'd like to see those chefs making something as good as this in 20 minutes with only 1 ingedient. Of course they cheat in that program by having fresh herbs at the back on a shelf - a luxury not afforded us on this occasion. Other events were skiidoo trials around an obstacle course, abseiling off the communications tower, and throwing Mukluks (winter moon-boot things). My team of Alistair the Doc, and Birgit (marine biologist) came last... Pic by Liz
Matt and Tris had spent a week and a half clandestinely digging in a large snow drift out the back of the base, and unleashed this snowbar on the unsuspecting public on the evening of the pub crawl. Top Notch. Pic by Jim.
In the snowbar - Left to Right - Mike Mailing (base commander), Carpenter Scott Jamieson (with head turned away), Matt and Tris through the little hole in the "VIP Area", handing lethal but innocuous-looking "white russians" throught the portal, Kelvin (dive maestro), Steve Boulton (plumber). Pic by Jim again.
I've just recorded a cover of a Stan Rogers tune which i like a lot and thought i'd put it up here since most folk probably haven't heard of him - he's (was, i think he's dead now...) a guitarist and singer from Nova Scotia, sings a lot about the sea and fishing, and this song is about having difficulty finding inspiration. Ironically, (but quite often the case) the lack of a decent song produces one of true quality. Unfortunately you have to listen to me singing this one, but he's well worth looking up because his voice is one of the richest and most beautiful i've heard. Anyway, blah blah blah.... here:
http://www.robertwebster.org/Tunes/songofthecandle.mp3
Actually, more like "Crevasse of Frozen Water", which is probably a lot colder and prettier than doom... Anyway, i'm sticking this in as my first post in ages due to mid-winter celebrations and week "off", and communications problems (as distinct from "communication problems"...). A post will follow on what we got up to during the darkest week in an Antarctican's year. On saturday night, when most people in the civilized world between the ages of 15 and 25 are getting "drunk and pissed up on booze", (that's a "The Day Today" joke....!) me and 8 other people decided to spend a night in the Local Crevasse, which is about 1km from Rothera on the Local Glacier.
