On Friday 9th Nov, the BAS Dash-7 aircraft flew into Rothera Research Station on the Antarctic Peninsula with six members of the Lake Ellsworth team – Andy Tait, Pete, Riet, Scott, Robin and Chris. The flight took five hours and was pretty comfortable with some stunning views as we approached Rothera.
On Sunday 11th Nov, a weather window opened up from Rothera all the way to Lake Ellsworth, and the call went out to prepare the Twin Otter load for input. This load contained all the vital cargo items to start up the camp (space heater, generator control panels, etc) and, of course, three members of the team. It made sense for the three members with the most field experience to input first and so Riet, Scott and Ian got their kit together in just over two hours and we loaded the plane for the first input.
The Twin Otter left Rothera just before 3pm local time and routed past Union Glacier to pick up Andy Webb to put four people on the ground at Lake Ellsworth. Ed will remain at Union Glacier and travel with the tractor traverse to monitor the temperature and condition of the sampling probes along the route. The tractor traverse will move the remaining 30 tonnes of equipment through the Ellsworth mountains and out up to the lake site approximately 250km away, and should arrive around 18th Nov.
Later in November our science team – Martin, David, Dom and Martyn ? will join us to begin the operational phase of the programme.
So, apart from a few minor delays, everything is actually right on schedule!