On board the ship were the crew, the officers and some other people like me who were going to work in Antarctica. We were called "FIDS" - an old term from when BAS used to be called the Falklands Islands Dependency Survey.

We spent three weeks crossing the Atlantic - but this was no relaxing cruise, we had lots of jobs to do....

Job number 1 was chipping and painting with George the Bosun. The RRS Bransfield was about 30yrs old and sea water / ice doesn't seem to be very good for paint. The worst job was hitting and scraping at old paint to remove it. I then graduated up through the ranks from white paint for the railings, black paint for the steps and finally to red paint for the life-ring boards. My painting days came to a sticky end when I accidently put the wrong end of a brush in my mouth and spat engine-room-aquamarine spit all afternoon.

Job number 2 was being a dental assistant to Wendy the dentist. This was a great job - but one we only did on calm days. I was mainly in charge of the sucky machine.

Job number 3 was collecting our position from the bridge every day and marking it on the map in the FIDS mess with a china-graph pen. A strangely satisfying task.