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

Our instructor was Mike. He taught us how to check and put on our harnesses. He then showed us how to climb using fall arrest equipment called "cow-tails" so that we were always attached to the mast.

My first challenge was to climb the mast and attach a pretend satellite dish. I had to learn to trust the "close working attachment" - a rope which loops around your body and hooks onto the mast - so that both my hands we free. My knees were like jelly and it took a lot of self persuasion and yelling / encouragement from Mike for me to take both hands off the pylon.

While we were in Taunton we stayed at a marvellous hotel where we ate a three course meal every night - including a delicious Pavlova pudding. As I got heavier and heavier during the week it got progressively harder and harder to clamber up the mast!

Mast erection in Cambridge
The following week, Mike came up to Cambridge to show us how to put up masts.

We spent a couple of days in the courtyard behind BAS putting together a mast and then dismantling it. It was mid-summer and blazing hot and in no way prepared me for how gruesome the same job would be in Antarctica.

... and in Antarctica
In Antarctica I had to climb a similar mast but with thick gloves and big boots on. Hanging around up a mast in Antarctica is exceedingly unpleasant - my fingers and toes went numb, the rungs are slippery with rime and I had to be careful not to touch the metal in case I stuck to it.