Halley Bay - 2000

Notable events/features of the year

• First year of the monthly Halley web diary (now an established feature), written by Dr Lil Ng.
• First year that three women wintered.

People

Pictures

Top: Andy Cope (Electrician), Simon Prasad (Passive Engineer & Winter Base Commander), Pat Fielder (Vehicle Mechanic), Richard Turner (Chef), David Glynn (SHARE Engineer) Middle: Steve White (Field General Assisant), Jamie Keir (Data Manager), Cat Gillies (Civil/Structural Engineer), Neil Farnell (AIS Engineer), Richard Borthwick (Heating & Ventilation Engineer), Gary Wilson (Meteorologist), Mark Stewart (Communications Manager) Front: Alex Gaffikin (Meteorologist), Lil Ng (Doctor), R. Erny Duston (General Mechanic), Dan Carson (Meteorologist)

It was a most notable millennium - a big splash of a party to see it in, the first time there were three women winterers, the cyclical peak of the aurora australis...and looking back, the season that I treated my most stressful medical case - where one of the sailors aboard RRS ES developed a bad case of bleeding and Chris Andrews (ex-Rothera doc circa 1970s) & I along with the dentist transfused 11 units of FIDS blood to him and by golly he survived ! Apart from this it was the usual bitterly cold winter, the year I smoked the most cigars in my life, superb trips to the pristine Hinge Z, marvelling at emperor penguin colonies and watching huge chunks of the Larsen ice shelf carve off into the Southern Ocean. A rip roaring marvellous year on ice. [25/08/2004]
For the record, childbirth is much more difficult than wintering in -50C Antarctica! [05/08/2004]

Links

Chris Andrews: "One of the shortest visits I suspect to Halley. Flew in from the Shackleton with a patient and took him into the surgery for a check. Left 40 minutes later for Rothera." [14 June 2006]