UK Training
Met training in Cambourne
Climbing masts in Taunton
Abseiling in Derbyshire
First aid in Derriford
Fire training

The Voyage South
Crossing to America
Montevideo
The Falklands
Sub- Antarctic Islands
The Brunt Iceshelf

Halley Research Station
Living on an ice shelf
Summer
Winter
Recording the weather
Holidays

I drove down with George, who was going to work as a meteorologist at Rothera reseach station on the Antarctic Peninsula. We were joined by Steve and Jon our instructors.

For the first few days we had gorgeous weather - perfect for sunbathing on the beach but useless in terms of learning the codes for clouds and weather. It did eventually rain, and we got some fantastic clouds to code.

The main thing we had to learn was how to convert cloud types like stratus, altocumulus and cirrus and weather types like fog, rain and showers into a number - a code which then gets sent to the the Met Office in Bracknell. It was not as easy as it sounds - the clouds in the sky rarely seemed to resemble the photographs in our book. Clouds can be very chaotic and if there are many layers then there are rules as to which clouds to code first. And, as if it wasn't hard enough, the entire observation - including reading the barometers and thermometers- had to be done in less than 15 minutes.

It was helpful but of course there is no snow in Cornwall in August - so I had to wait to get to Antarctica to learn how to code phenomena like snowfall, rime and sea-ice.