Sea Ice And Sundown- Rothera Traditions

Just over a month ago, on 25th May, the sun dipped below the horizon where it will remain invisible to us until 19th July. A traditional sundown ceremony ensued at Rothera. The oldest member of the station, Sam, lowered the Union Jack flag. We all gathered outside wrapped up in down jackets, scarves, two hats and thick gloves and endured temperatures which felt like -15 with the wind chill factor. The station leader delivered a short speech which was met with a whisky toast! Then Sam removed his gloves and strummed 'Everybody's gotta live' by 'Love' on the guitar (listen here). How he had bare hands for three minutes is beyond me. Sam is the station's wintering carpenter and as a celebration to mark such an event, he invited us to the carpenter shed where he performed the song again. Everybody resumed the celebrations and relished the warmth whilst playing games in high spirits.

Sam introducing his song

A traditional speech delivered by our station leader- Matthew

Lowering the flag

Following the sundown ceremony, everyone has been busy preparing winter gifts. Similarly to a secret Santa, it is traditional to make a personal hand-made gift for another team member decided by a draw from a hat. Presents are often constructed from wood, recycled materials and old bits of electrics. Countless hours were spent by each person on station fabricating a gift from the planning stage, to finding appropriate materials, to familiarisation with new tools and learning new skills. It's been a sociable time but not always easily a secretive one as the workspaces were often shared amongst many. On 21st June, we exchanged gifts during our mid-winter celebration.

Pete, the boating officer, putting pins into the start of a Scottish kilt

Mid Winter celebrations date back to 1889 when the crew of a Belgian Antarctic expedition, on board the Belgica. spent an unplanned winter with their ship trapped in pack ice in the Bellingshausen Sea. Ever since, overwintering Antarctica teams celebrate this day.

To start the day's celebration, the station leader took tea and coffee orders and brought our desired drink to our room at 9 am. What a luxury! Brunch followed at 10:30 am with a Buck's Fizz, croissants, rye bread etc. The kitchen was bustling with helpers frying eggs, arranging the cheese board and shaping croquettes.... it was beginning to feel a lot like Christmas!

Early afternoon, the moment we had all be waiting for: personalised mid winter presents which had been brought to the bar that morning, would finally be opened! The table was arranged with a multitude of colours and fabrics. People had taken great care whilst creatively wrapping their presents with bed sheets, pillow cases, old maps, recycled newspaper and other miscellaneous pieces of material.

After weeks in the carpenter shed, craft room, sewing machine room, the anticipation was high. Our meteorologist, John, began the ceremony as he held the title of having completed the most winters at Rothera within the team (a total of three). Each person opened their present and then delivered their gift to its recipient. It was a proud moment to watch your hard-worked gift being opened.

The present display post unveiling of the creative wrapping paper

The exchange of presents ceremony

Our station chef, Katy, spent weeks planning a meal and days doing the mis en place for the special dinner to celebrate the shortest day of the year. We ate like kings, indulging in five courses! Other winter stations on the Antarctic continent shared team photos and menu plans amongst stations - with some stations hosting seven courses! By the third course, however, people were struggling to move...

Rothera's winter message- Photo credit: Matthew Phillips

Our mid winter menu (click if you wish to enlarge the image)

Winter team photo in the dining room, decorated with flags from around the world- Photo credit: Matthew Phillips

Warning, if you are thinking of applying to a job with BAS, do not read the next two paragraphs

At 18:00 local time, we walked across to the communications tower (the area where traffic communications are controlled in the summer), to listen to a very low frequency broadcast transmitted by the BBC World Service. You can listen here. A surprise to most of the 23 wintering personnel was hearing personal messages from our family, and David Attenborough featured on the broadcast from Kew Gardens, accompanied by a blackbird!

Gathering in the tower to listen to the Mid Winter broadcast- Photo credit: Klara Weaver & Mike Lindsell

The surprises continued when our station leader and the deputy station leader dressed up in Santa's outfits during our dessert course and handed out shoeboxes with gifts from home. Completely unknown to us, these gifts had been packed at home in August by our families and had accompanied us on the James Clark Ross.

~End~

Amongst the mid winter celebrations, another tradition is to gather in the field guide building (Fuchs) and watch a thriller from 1982 'The Thing' directed by John Carpenter and set in Antarctica.

John Carpenter's 'The Thing'

The start of June brought with it sea ice which froze fast to the land across the entirety of Ryder Bay and beyond.

Sea ice view from the North

Sea ice view from the East

The arrival of sea ice hails in the deepest and darkest part of our winter. The lack of light has led people to switch to more indoor based activities and generally people are sleeping more. The lack of vitamin D certainly has knock-on impacts on dampening energy levels but I have found that within our team, we are good at being proactive and organising events. One positive outcome of loosing the sun is not having to keep track of the whereabouts of my category 4 sunglasses!

The mid winter celebration was certainly a good morale boost for the base. Various themed event nights such as a casino night, a cocktail night, tapas in the bar, Mexican and Greek platters, together with a healthy mixture of sports such as badminton, football, table tennis and indoor climbing has helped everyone to adapt to the lack of light. Contrary to my initial expectations, the loss of the sun below the horizon does not result in two months of total darkness. On average, we still experience about 4-6 hours of twilight where it is possible to get outside and snowboard, ski, walk, kite, run and climb; albeit for a much shorter window of time than we were used to in the summer.

Out in the twilight hours of July engaging in a new snow activity- kiting

Similarly to these temporary feelings associated with the loss of the sun, the sea ice cover is also transient. Within the last few weeks, we have experienced the break-out of huge slabs of sea ice that, until recently, extended as far as the eye could see. In order for the sea ice to reform, we need consistently low temperatures (below -5) and little wind to assist with formation. Stay tuned to find out what the rest of the winter will bring.......