Halley Diary — July 2005

31 July, 2005 Halley

Another month passes quickly, written by Jamie Koplick (Heating/Ventilation Engineer)

The month began pretty much the same as all the others, without me realising it! Time really does fly down here, and those end of month reports seem to come around quicker and quicker each month, that’s my excuse anyway. Work wise things carry on as normal and the world class maintenance never stops, thanks to our world class maintenance team (and Kev’s fantastic cooking of course, happy now Kev?) and despite the beakers!

The return of daylight has seen the return of the kiters even though it’s still regularly below -50 with windchill (well sometimes) but we’re made of tuff stuff down here!

The return of a little bit of day light doesn’t mean the end of the aroura though, the night skies can still be pretty amazing.

And the daytime ones can be pretty impressive too….

Sub zero temperatures never seem to deter the homeless either, although since the Antarctic treaty their not allowed to bring their dogs, we found this one sheltering on the container line.

Some of the team decided to brave the elements and sleep under the stars like real Antarctic heros. Here’s generator mechanic Matt ‘Pretty boy’ Butters trying to get some much needed beauty sleep, we reckon about 3 years will do it!

Indoors things are a little more temperate, thanks to the superbly maintained and very efficient heating and ventilation system (ok it’s a bit chipper in some of the pit rooms but hey, this is the Antarctic!) Our indoor activities this month consisted mostly of dressing up as a person of historical significance, attaching oneself to the end of a bungee cord and seeing how far down the corridor you can get before being dragged back to where you started incurring friction burns along the way (friction burns optional)

Our other main social event this month was the murder mystery night, we all dressed as characters from colonial India and tried to guess who’d dunnit!! The culprit turned out to be the cunning Lady Hurly Burly (met babe �ness), who did it with a croquet mallet, on the croquet lawn, much to the surprise of everyone including her husband Colonel Hurly Burly.

Also for fun this month the base voted to have the majority of base commander Simon Coggins’ brain removed, he was surprisingly willing and hardly took any persuading at all, Petra Schmit, base vet did the honours, most of us hardly noticed any difference at all!

That about sums things up for July really, just a quick hi from me to all the folks back home, miss you all and see you soon!!! And a special message to my beautiful and long suffering girlfriend Emma (so nobody else read this bit please!), I love you baby and miss you more every day can’t wait to see you in Barcelona.

PS Credit to all those who took the above pics I can’t remember who you are but I’m sure you can, cheers….

Jamie Koplick
(Heat and Vent Engineer and all round nice guy).