Rob's Antarctica Diary

The Blogscape of Rob Webster...

2007-09-03T01:25:00.005Z

An update on the blog situation of I, Rob Webster

At the time of this edit (29th January 2009) I have 3 blogs, and 1 "diary". They are here:

http://rotherapoint.blogspot.com/

This blog. Leaving the UK, travelling to Antarctica, Winter 2007

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www.robertwebster.org/blog.html

Deals with the 2nd year and a half of my Antarctic time, including the making of my acoustic guitar.

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http://rob-webster.blogspot.com/

Post-Antarctica Rob. Travels in South America from January 2009 onwards.

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www.robertwebster.org/wind_turbine.htm

Building a wind turbine from scratch.

Thank you for reading! Rob

UPdates....

2007-08-30T16:36:00.000Z

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

Covers for Warmth

2007-08-09T18:35:00.000Z

A pic from a week ago, showing some of the snowsculpture that the winds like to do.

Bad weather is the phrase stamped across the last week. It has meant the effective end of hopes for sea-ice travel on my forthcoming winter trip, but on the plus side has bulked up the snow stores which, given some decent conditions, may allow some new and exciting routes to be skiied...

So lots of indoor activities, many involving strings, ears, and chords of the vocal and guitar varieties. I've been practicing singing and playing at the same time and i'm definately getting somewhere and i think that somewhere is better. anyway, for anyone who happens to be interested i've made a few cover versions for my own enjoyment and practice of guitar skills.

Dead Weight on Velveteen - Jose Gonzalez Cover

If you haven't heard of this guy i recommend you look him up and listen to his album "Veneer" which is a cracking set of songs just performed on a classical guitar with vocals. His voice is 1 million times better than mine, of course!

Kathy's Song - Simon and Garfunkel Cover

Everyone knows this tune or has heard it before, it's quite typically sad for the Simon and Garfunkel stuff but still a cracking song about missing loved ones so quite appropriate.

Today i went out with Alison the marine assistant and GA Roger Stillwell (see blog link to right...) to do a CTD which basically means taking one of the little RIBs a few kms out into the sea and winding a sensor array down to 350m and then hauling it back up, which is an excellent way to get warm especially when, like today, it was about -12! It was so cold with the wind that i hardly took any photos but i took a little bit of video whn Ali was driving us back - the wind had got up and the sea was freezing very quickly (freezing temp of the sea is about -1.8 degrees C) so we were ploughing through varying thicknesses of pancake, nilas and grease ices. After a few seconds my fingers were totally numb so i had to stop... here lie the digital remnants of that little morning trip:

Escape from CTD Site 1

The crappy weather has also galvanised action from me on the matter of the Rothera Winter 2007 Film Festival, due to be held and judged in October. I am doing a 5 minute animation and doing a sountrack for it. Quite fun trying to work out how to do it...! That's all for now.

rob

A Couple of Pictures

2007-07-30T20:53:00.000Z

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...

Return of the Sun!

2007-07-15T22:23:00.000Z

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

Sonic mattress in E-minor

2007-07-14T22:17:00.001Z

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

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that's all for now, rob

More Nacreous Sky Delights...

2007-07-12T15:24:00.001Z

The best yet nacreal (not sure if thats correct...) display. couldn't resist taking roughly 1000 photos. here are a few of the juiciest:

Mother of Pearl

2007-07-11T18:39:00.000Z

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.

Simple post of complex beauty

2007-07-10T18:25:00.000Z

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.

Walk Around "The Point"

2007-06-29T17:49:00.000Z

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.

Mid-Winter Photo

2007-06-29T01:22:00.000Z

This is what i have to deal with...! Photo by Alistair Simpson, names added by me.

Where were you on the Week of Mid-Winter?

2007-06-28T23:20:00.000Z

A few photos from our midwinter pub crawl... all pictures not by me - i was sensible and left the camera in my room!

What have we here? BungeeBar! Each different work venue made up some sort of bar based entertainment for the grand Rothera Mid-Winter Pub Crawl. Although around the middle of the night, the crawl was more of an bungee cord inhibited sprint, with the possible reward of various types of drink. In this picture our chef Cyril takes a stroll up the course, defying the taut elastic to ping him - he made it look easy and almost reached the glowing bottle of whisky at the end of the course (similar to Nirvana - nice to imagine getting to, but simply impossible given the rules of life...). Even the mightly Frenchman was beaten by the fearsome retaining power of the giant elastic bands though, having just about time to read the label on his newly won bottle of port as he was pung gracelessly through the sledge store air. I managed reasonably well, coming out with a slightly shaken-up can of Stella but stangely, during my attempts on the prize, all cameras around the world simultaneously refused to work...

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...

This is me skiing off a little cornaced edge above the Bonner Lab - trying to find little exciting routes to ski around the base. Pretty cool picture by Matt.

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.

Alistair the Doc is pretty much Tee-Total but that didn't stop him turning his surgery into a den of iniquity, force feeding "fluids" to unsuspecting crawlers whilst they reclined in the falsely reassuring and obscenely comfortable "inspection table". I think Mike is just resting his eyes in this picture... Don't know who took this one.

Songs About Songwriting

2007-06-27T05:07:00.000Z

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

Crevasse of Doom...

2007-06-25T15:37:00.000Z

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.

The interior, after abseiling about 30 feet through a small entrance hole, is absolutely stunning, exactly how i imagined an ice cave to be like when imagining such things as a child (reading Hans Christian Anderson stories perhaps, or Narnia or somesuch yarn with suitably evil ice queen). I hope some of these pictures can give you some idea of how excellent this place is. Also i had my little recording device with me because you can ping the icicles with a finger or another icicle (or kick some of the really huge ones) and they make beautiful resonant sounds like a glass glockenspiel (glassgenspiel?). OK that's enough words - besides, it has been proven that 1 picture is worth roughly a thousand times more than 1 word...

Pink Sky

2007-06-08T22:48:00.001Z

A splendid sky today - this was around 11 o'clock in the morning.

Optical Phenomenon...

2007-06-05T20:51:00.000Z

Today we got a nice light show from the north in the form of a sun pillar rising above the setting and invisible sun. It's caused by reflection of sunlight by the flat faces of ice plate crystals which are shaped like tiny "stop" signs (hexagonal). As they drift downwards they are aligned like leaves with the "stop" face almost horizontal and catch the light. Anyway, i think that's basically what happens - i'm no expert. The pillar lasted for about half an hour and held up what little daylight we have for a bit longer.

Runway Moods, Vol. 2

2007-06-02T22:23:00.000Z

It was such a nice day that the band decided to get out onto the runway to do some filming of us playing some tunes with a stunning backdrop... Most of these were taken between 11.00 and 13.00 - i also include them because they're quite representative of the light levels we're getting down to at the moment, with three weeks left til widwinter. When there's any low or medium cloud in the direction of the sun, then it's very dark and gloomy indeed... rob

Frost and Moon

2007-06-01T18:49:00.001Z

A few more pics from this beautiful Friday... The frost ones use a little bit of artistic licence in the post-processing but they look splendid so i thought i'd stik them on here.

Long Exposure...

2007-06-01T17:05:00.000Z

Hi everyone, i've been posting fewer pictures recently partly due to the rubbish weather and darkness - but this morning it was beautifully clear and the full moon was up, so i got some fairly long exposure shots (8-15 seconds) from the operations tower. Also got some black and white photos in the "green" room last night as i was trying to record some drums - thats why all the photos are in blacvk and white - i forgot to change it back, which missed the beautiful horizontal colours, but i think they still look pretty pretty. ok, thats all for now. i'm beginning to think that my monthly report probably won't write itself... rob

Hey ho!

2007-05-29T15:07:00.000Z

Hi folks, sorry about the lengthy delay in posting anything - things are good here, but it's been very dark and i haven't really taken any photos for ages. Also i have been very busy with something which i can't talk about at the moment, but is pretty exciting! "It" is currently taking up every spare minute of time for me and several other folk on base. All will be revealed at some point, assuming it doesn't turn into a big mess....!

Cheers, Rob

My Newish Website!

2007-05-17T14:16:00.000Z

Just a post to let you know about my website which i'm rebuilding at the moment - if anyone's interested it's got a fair amount of music on there, some photos which will be added to regularly, and in a while it'll have poems and pictures i've made. It's here:

www.robertwebster.org

Song Cover

2007-05-16T17:12:00.000Z

Hey ho - our rubbish weather continues, today it's freezing fog (like normal fog but with supercooled water droplets which freeze immediately onto cold surfaces) and visibility is less than 1000m - incidentally this is the difference between mist and fog.

Sooooooo.... I'm working on a new website which should be finished in a few weeks which will have a nice design and have all my music and words and stuff like that on it which i'll post a link to if anyone happens to be interested, once it's done.

In the meantime, here's a picture of my hat:

For no other reason than i think it's a nice image... Anyway, last night i did a cover of a Nick Cave song called Hallelujah - don't know if it's about anything particular, but the words are a bit unusual and amusing despite the sadness in the song:

Hallelujah (Nick Cave Cover)

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Rob's Back From His Winter Trip...

2007-05-08T20:52:00.000Z

Hello all, i'm a few busy backs from my first winter trip - the antarctic equivalent of a holiday, although significantly colder and less relaxing than any holiday i've previously had! Out of 6 days away we had 1 day of ski-mountaineering, 3 days of climbing, and 2 days of "lay-up" - basically whimpering in our tents in prohibitive weather. As these trips go, that's a very good record! Anyway, here are some pictures:

This is a view of Gwendolene, which we skinned up (climbed on skiis) on the first day, and then skiied down, taken from the top of Trident, the second day's climb.

A view back down the ridge of Trident we'd just walked up (click to enlarge).

One of a couple of beautiful sunsets from our camp on the Wormald Ice Piedmont, a tapaulined skiidoo in the foreground. Everything has to be flagged and tarpaulined to protect them from snow and to mark their positions in case a storm was to arrive suddenly. This picture is looking SW from the camp.

Left to Right - Andy (Mechanic), Liz (my FGA), and Me, climbing a hill called Orca, on account of it having a "dorsal fin" of rock on top of it. Photo by Roger Stilwell, Andy's FGA.

Loaded Nansen sledge, of a type used for pretty much a century. This is one half of the sledging provision for one group of 2 people, and is called a half-unit. When we travel we use 2 skiidoos and 2 sledges (a unit) in the following way: GA on skiidoo, attached by 10 metres of rope to one sledge, then 30m of rope to the front of my skiidoo, then i pull the other sledge behind me. The drivers are attached by harnesses and ropes to the skiidoos. All this is to save your life if any part of the convoy happens to be swallowed up by an invisible crevasse (it does happen! But not very often).

Stunning sunset looking towards NE.

Looking East from the camp at around moonrise/sunset.

Green, Blue, Pink, Purple. Black.

This one is great - you can clearly see Orion's belt if you blow the image up a bit.

We were lucky enough to be out camping when the moon was near to being full, so whenever it was partially clear we had amazing light, sunsets, moonrises, stars and with no light pollution it was really spectacular. Despite having my fingers nearly lost to cold (not really, but it was bloody brisk!) me and roger were having loads of fun with his tripod and long exposures in the moonlight, getting amazing shots of the scenery almost as if in daylight but with the added beauty of the stars. And a bit of cleverness in the use of headtorches and external flashes we got some pretty cool images.... The one of the 4 people (clockwise: Me, Pete (head GA), Andy, and Birgit (Marine Biologist)) was taken by Roger, the rest by me.

Boating/ Sea Ice/ Marvelousness

2007-04-26T20:00:00.000Z

Last sunday i got out on my first recreational boat trip - it was a stunning day and Kelvin the mountainous dive and boat maestro flung us around the bay in a RIB (rigid inflatable boat, which i'm also learning to drive), first up to the north where there are some stunning grounded icebergs, and then to the south to land on Lagoon Island (which i point out in one of my semi-legendary video clips (?!)), where there is a little simple bothy-type hut (see below) guarded by elephant seals - out of the water simply the most disgusting animals i've ever witnessed - to the point where it's comical! I might post some video in a bit of Ken (generator mechanic and old punk) getting into the hut which was quite amusing... Anyway, here's some photos....

Kelvin and Stella the RIB - 80 agitated horses on the back of this beast, Stella is mostly used for dive operations.

The hut on Lagoon, surrounded by elephants. These monsters can weigh several tons when fully bloated - their favourite (only) activity is letting vast amounts of putrid gas escape from their living corpses regularly and loudly. I am reliably informed that they are the epitomy of elegance under the water though, and i don't doubt it - they are specially designed for deep diving, and can happily dive to 1500m. That's one and a half kilometres straight downwards into water, just shy of a mile...

A very cool bit of iceberg - this one is about 15 - 20m high, and took on a look almost reminiscent of nougat or meringue.

Pancaking of the sea-ice near the base - early signs of sea-ice approaching. These pancakes start really thin, and gradually layer up then start rafting on each other and sticking together (if it's cold and calm enough for a decent length of time.

More pancake ice looking rather lovely.

The green building on the left with the red window edges is our new building - it was supposed to be finished by now, but instead it's a half empty shell that will be finished next summer, just in time for my second winter...

OK - c'est ca for now - things are very busy with work and preparations for my WINTER TRIP which starts on Sunday hopefully. Weather permitting...

Distorted Blues!

2007-04-18T22:26:00.000Z

No new photos for a while (we've had rubbish weather for several days) so here's another bit of guitar that i recorded last night - for some reason i'm really enjoying blues riffs at the moment - not, i hasten to add, a reflection of my state of mind at all - i just really like the sound of distorted electric guitars playing rhythmic droning sort of tunes like this one. Guitar recording has temporarily taken over from electronic beats for the moment, partly because it takes much less time, but i'll get back to the squeaks and bleeps soon no doubt!

Distorted Blues

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