As we all settle in for Christmas at home, spare a thought for the hundreds of people working in the Antarctic region, surrounded by penguins. The Cambridge-based British Antarctic Survey (BAS) employs thousands of workers who are spending the festive season at five research stations and on board the Harwich-based vessel, the RRS Sir David Attenborough. Some of them have been sharing their Christmas plans.
Derren Fox, 52, is a zoological field assistant at Signy Island Research Station, which is on one of the remote South Orkney Islands. “On Christmas Day I’ll head over to Gourlay Peninsula on the south-east shores of the island to carry out the almost daily checks on the chinstrap and Adelie penguin colonies to monitor productivity,” he said. “This will probably be followed by some sledging or snowman building with some of the other station members before returning to base for a traditional Christmas meal, this year cooked by our station leader, and then probably falling asleep in traditional Christmas style in front of a cheesy festive movie.”
The task of rustling up a full Christmas dinner falls to Signy’s station leader, Sarah Clark. “The Signy tradition is for the station leader to cook Christmas dinner, so that is what I will be doing – but we are just a small team of five at the moment,” she says. “We’ll have a nice brunch whilst reading the email greetings from all the other Antarctic and Sub-Antarctic stations. Then the others will probably head out to survey some penguins and do some sledging and I will hold down the fort, make sure everything is ok on station and get the turkey, nut roast and trimmings sorted. After dinner we’ll spend the evening enjoying some games together including maybe some Christmas darts.”
Capt Will Whatley is master of the RRS Sir David Attenborough, spending the season at sea. “Christmas is in the middle of the operational season in Antarctica so it is a busy time work-wise,” he says. “It’s usually possible for us to take the day off, although some people will still have to work to keep the ship safe and ticking over. With modern day communications, it is always possible to do a video chat with family and friends back home which is very different from years gone by.”
Aaron Harper is the chief cook on the Sir David Attenborough. “This Christmas I will be working,” the chef, from Harwich, Essex, says. “We’ll be feeding 56 people and we’re doing turkey with all the trimmings. Assisting him will be Nick Greenwood, the senior steward on the ship. “On Christmas Day I will be working on helping to get the Christmas dinner ready. When I finish work, I will have a festive tipple and then back to my cabin to watch a Christmas movie.”
Rowan Whittle, 45, is a palaeontologist who usually lives in Cambridge. However, this year, she is one of a small team which has been dropped off by the BAS ship and will spend Christmas in a tent. “We are being deployed onto King George Island a couple of days before Christmas,” she says. “Our team of three, Saurav Dutta, a geochemist, Andy Moles, a field guide and myself, will be camping for four weeks hunting for fossils, to try and understand how Antarctic seafloor ecosystems evolved. As our trip is time-limited we will need to work on Christmas Day if the weather allows. We will either be finishing camp set-up or conducting an initial survey of the study area. Hopefully we can finish a bit early on Christmas Day to cook something nice with our field rations.
Read the full article from The BBC here: Read More
