Home.

Well almost. I still had to negotiate customs, immigration and a final roundabout route involving Oxford, Heathrow and an amazing taxi ride through Regents Park (trees! green!!) before I finally walked through my front door at 0630.

Our voyage from Rothera to Stanley had been relatively quick – but certainly not boring. Just before we left the base we got a cloud free satellite image that showed the local sea ice conditions. Now Rothera base is on Adelaide Island – but this island is separated from the Antarctic continent by gap only a few hundred metres wide. With mountains thousands of metres high on either side the gap is called The Gullet. In all my visits to Rothera I had never been through the Gullet because it has always been blocked by ice. This time was to be different. With a satellite picture show ice-free conditions the captain made the choice to take us on the inland route.

To tell the truth my photos of the day were not great. The light was poor and of course there was not much of it! Having said that it was magnificent. When you are standing out on the bow of the ship the only thing you can hear is the wind – not the engines or anything like that. You just take it in. When we reached the narrowest part of the channel it seemed a bit stupid to be surprised by the fact that an iceberg virtually blocked the channel. The problem was that the satellite can only see things bigger than a certain size (this is determined by the resolution), and this particular iceberg – although too small for the satellite – was large enough to almost stop us in the tracks.

image of ship's radar.

[copyright Mark Brandon]

The image on the left is a photograph of the ship’s radar at the time. The Bright yellow on either side of the image is land, and the blue patch from the bottom left hand corner to the upper right hand corner is water. The yellow blob almost in the middle of the picture with the green line coming from it is our ship – the green line shows our direction of travel. You can see right across the middle of the blue, and in front of us is a yellow bar – this is the radar reflection of the iceberg that almost stopped us. We were heading right for it!

In yet another outrageous piece of seamanship the Captain managed to squeeze the ship through the tiny gap on the left of the berg. Amazing.

Being out at sea again on the way back the Falklands we soon left the last iceberg behind.

Mark Brandon.

[photo © copyright Mark Brandon].

So now I am home at last, sitting in the sun and enjoying the long daylight hours. At home when you go from winter to spring you almost miss the extra minutes of daylight that arrive every day until suddenly it is light for all of your waking hours.

To jump from early winter to late spring in one go is an unsual and wonderful thing.

I have to say I now really love the colour green!

It's actually a strange time to be at Rothera because although during the short Antarctic summer there can be upwards of 120 people working here, now there are only about 45 - and half of those are leaving Antarctica on our ship leaving just 22 people to make it through the Antarctic winter.

There is an amazing amount of work going on. We are the last people leaving and so its the last chance to make sure everything that needs to go north is on board. Whilst some of the stuff coming out with us is obvious - for example we have a couple of mechanical diggers already loaded, some is a bit more obscure. For example I bet you would be surprised at the amount of rubbish we are bringing out. You see, people often talk about how Antarctica is under threat, but in reality compared with some vunerable areas of the planet you should be pleased to find out we have some of the strictest environmental laws on the planet.

If you think about it it seems obvious that you should take your rubbish out of Antarctica. But of course it wasn't always that way. In the golden olden days research stations just put their rubbish out on the sea ice in winter, and when the summer came and the ice broke up, that was it - gone! The first time I came south was with the US Antarctic Program and I spent time talking to writer who had dived at McMurdo Research Station. He told me how once he found an ironing board on the sea floor! I couldn't imagine bringing an ironing board to Antarctica, let alone throwing it away!! That could just not happen now. Everything comes out thanks to the most amazing set of rules.

When we leave there will be just 22 people left and entirely on their own. There are actually only three scientists on the base over winter - but it takes a lot of people to keep the operation running. You have a base commander, a doctor, a builder, a mechanic, a chef, an electrician a plumber, a comms person and some mountaineers. And that's it. The average age is I think about 26.

I'm sure they want us to go as soon as possible so they can get on with organizing themselves, but for the last couple of days they not only cope with us, but one of the mountaineers (an architect on holiday for the year) took us out into the local hills. It was great to stretch my legs away from the base, and take a skidoo ride for a few kilometers.

I really hope they have a succesful winter.

If you want to see it get dark and tough it gets for them at Rothera you can always take a look on the webcam.

Oh and I nearly forgot. I finally got some chocolate from the Base. OK, so it was 6 years out of date but after what seems like forever, it tasted great.

Next stop the Falkland Islands.

Loaded sledges.

[photo © copyright Mark Brandon

I said the kit has been on the sea floor for a couple of years – but that is not strictly true because every year we have visited and recovered it from the sea floor to download the data, then redeployed it again. But the fact that you have got it back before doesnt mean it is any easier to get this time....

The whole point of this sort of science is you can leave the stuff and it works through the whole winter when you are not around. But out of sight is definately not out of mind. I have woken up loads of times over the last year dreaming of icebergs running the kit over and destroying it.

So it's now about 14 months after the last time I deployed this bit of kit and I am close to where we dropped the kit off.

We stop and lower our hydrophone (a big waterproof microphone) and shout "hello" (an acoustic signal at a special frequency that tells the kit to answer us).

Silence.

"HELLO".

Silence.

My heart starts to sink and I have a mental picture of the iceberg that must have destroyed the kit. It's one of those moments you plan for but hope won't come. But it has. OK, option A doesn't work, try option B, then onto option C, D and so on.

By 15 minutes I was up to option F and still no answer. Then I heard a tremendous WHOOOSH. A couple of Minke whales were on the surface next to the ship and breathing. I guess they had probably heard our hydrophones and come to investigate. I didn't have time to look but they did distract the people not involved in the science from watching me struggle.

I was pretty tense by option K when finally we got an answer. It was still there and on the sea floor! But was it OK? It took another 20 minutes of struggling before I thought we had finally persauded it to come to the surface.

I turned to the bosun to tell him, and was just in time to see him point, smile and say "there it is Mark".

My large orange float was about 100m from the ship.

In the open ocean with kit floating on the surface it can sometimes be a bit tough getting it on board, but with this ship, this crew and in calm waters I knew the job is done.

It's hard to describe the relief. But it was soon followed by the most amazing tiredness. I have had a couple of months of nightwatches now and I guess every day you are a little more burned out.

As soon as the kit was on board that was me in bed. It was the end of my last night shift of this trip.

When I woke six hours later we were alongside at Rothera.

Then it struck me.

We really are used to the cold temperatures now.

OK so we live on a ship which is probably at about 15-20°C, but we have been working outside for hours in temperatures down to -23°C in the

Standing in the Sun today at temperatures 15 degrees warmer than last week feels just like summer to me as much as it does to people in the UK enjoying the easter sunshine.

I think I may find it a bit hot when I finally get home.

Antarctic Seabirds.

[Image by Mark Brandon, © copyright Mark Brandon]

Everything on the ship is secured and tied down for weather like this – even this laptop I am typing on. So whilst we get jolted all the time and tons and tons of water are washing over our decks nothing is moving. My dad was a merchant seaman and spent nigh on 20 years telling me to pick up my stuff and stow it properly. I guess he would be smiling now…..

It's Easter this weekend and by the time I am back in touch I should be at one of the British Antarctic research stations called Rothera  So until then have a great break.

No chocolate…. I still can't believe that.

Now personally I can't remember how many times I have been south but its probably about 20 times in total (so far!), and that means I have a certain view of the things I am seeing and experiencing. I thought it would be in interesting for you to read how people can feel on their first visit to work in Antarctica. Luckily there are three other scientists keeping blogs on this trip and all of them are well worth a visit (if only because they are all better photographers than me!).

First there are two PhD students from the University of East Anglia - Geli, and Karel. Geli is German and has written her blog in two languages, and Karel is Mexican so you need Spanish to read the text - but can enjoy the brilliant photos. And finally there is Dr Paul, a research scientist at BAS. Enjoy!

Now we are back into the satellite footprint and able to read the news I find I have missed a terrible Channel 4 TV program that apparently didn't bear any resemblence to reality and was about global warming being a "swindle". It must have been truly terrible because apart from the usual suspects you would expect to criticize a program like that such as The Guardian, The Independent and the excellent www site realclimate.org - the British Antarctic Survey - a UK Government Research Lab has issued a statement saying in very polite language that Channel 4 should be ashamed.

With so many climate scientists on the ship we have talked a lot about ethics and honesty and what we are doing studying the climate. My take is that as a scientist you only really have your integrity and without honesty a scientist is nothing.

I find it dissapointing because my University has gone to great lengths with the BBC to make high quality award winning TV programmes about climate change and why we should act. Whilst I doubt the program makers care about what they have done - they really really should.

Last nights blizzard has got worse during the day and at the moment we are holding our position in a big sea and strong winds waiting to make more measurements. It's not so confortable with the ship rolling about 15 degrees either side of vertical and it doesnt make sleeping easy, but it should be over in a day or two.

From that point on, everyone was dressed the same way.

The same trousers, the same boots, the same hats, and my personal favourite – the FID check shirt.

Now the FID bit is because before the British Antarctic Survey was formed, it was called the Falkland Island Dependency Survey or FIDS. So everyone who worked for them became a FID. (Sometimes BAS people are still called FIDS). But the check shirts… what can I say! They almost came down your knees, were so fiercely woolly that only a real man could wear one next to skin, and of course there was a large check pattern.

Times change because when I got my kit bag a few months ago all that had gone. In its place  were acres and acres of fleece instead of wool. Top clothing – really seriously good stuff. But there is one bad result….

It is very dry in Antarctica, and it is also cold. Mix cold and dry with fleece and what do you get?

CRACK.

Yup static electricity.

I have lost count of the times each day I get electric shocks. I know I know – its only an inconvenience, but every time I get that crack as I touch a door, a chair – in fact almost anything, I jump, hit the ceiling (deck head if you want to be technical about it) and try not to yelp. I guess the only good thing is that everyone suffers – and it is funny when you hear that snap and someone else gets a jolt.

I am longing for the day when I take off my clothes and they don’t menacingly crackle at me.

The science interest at the moment is, despite the blizzard outside, the temperature of the ocean has risen above 0°C for the first time for us in over 6 weeks…..

Must be heading northwards a bit!