Antarctic diary - 13/14 May 2005

23 year old biologist Dan Smale is spending his second winter at British Antarctic Survey's Rothera Research Station on the Antarctic Peninsula. Read the latest entries in Dan's online diary, exclusive to Flipside Extra!

14 May 2005
Even though we live and work in the same place we still try to work a normal working week. Winter working hours are similar to the UK - 9 to 5 Monday to Friday and of course the weekend is a great time to relax and have fun. This weekend brought some stable weather and a rare opportunity to go snowboarding. We have a medium sized slope up on the ice plateau about 5 kilometres from the station, just a short skidoo ride away. Snowboarding and skiing are very popular pastimes here and if the weather is kind it can be seriously fun. I took up snowboarding when I came South and now I'm totally hooked! The snow was pretty good and everyone enjoyed plenty of runs in the afternoon sun (although a few major wipe-outs were seen!).

Today was yet another base-member's birthday and what better excuse for a fancy dress party?! The theme for the festivities was 'P-night', simply come dressed as anything beginning with the letter 'P'. Peter Pan, Picasso, Punks, Pizza Girls, Pele, Polar Heroes and more all showed up for a great party in the bar and were all seen dancing the night away. Peter 'Paul Mann' Pan certainly seemed to enjoy his birthday celebrations!

13 May 2005
Following a day of cold weather the sea ice to the North was again looking pretty solid. After inspection of the dive holes it was clear that the tide cracks and hole edges were hard enough to support diving operations. Finally I would get the chance to go ice diving in winter 2005! The sun just about rose above the mountains at 11am and provided enough workable light. I have a lot of experiments in place at this dive site so there was much work to do whilst conditions were favourable. I opted for a long shallow dive and managed to get some samples from iceberg impacts and complete a survey of the experimental markers, which are laid in grids on the seabed. There are lots of bergs frozen into the new sea ice and it makes for truly stunning scenery. The visibility is fantastic and some of the ice formations are breath taking. Of course, when you have only two entrance points to a dive site it is crucial to stay fairly close to these and to be aware of exactly where they are at all times.

After that highly successful dive there was much to be done in the labs. All the data from the survey was recorded and the samples were preserved and I took a first look at the types and number of animals that were living in the different habitat types. An excellent day of Antarctic marine biology.