Slots and knots

Today I have been extremely busy with checking my clothing issue and practising crevasse rescues with Roger. We only did the latter indoors - tomorrow we will go outside and try it for real (although not the falling in crevasse bit!). In fact they have here a 'show' crevasse, where they take VIPs and people who fancy a trip out from base. I hope I might also have the chance to do this, because people always bring back lovely photos of long ice crystals and beautiful colours in the ice. For those who don't know what a crevasse (or 'slot') is, it is a deep vertical crack in a glacier. They can form if the ice starts to flow over a steeper bit of rock or round an obstruction e.g. lump of rock. Some are huge - tens of metres deep and several metres wide. They are not always visible when you walk or drive across a glacier because they get covered in snow. If you fall down one without being attached to anything at the surface, that will most likely signal curtains for you.... So for glacier travel, we always go roped to another person for safety reasons. In the event that Roger falls into a crevasse (highly unlikely, by the way), then I will have to get him out, hence the training.

This evening our dinner was actually quite nice. We had steak with mushroom and pepper sauce and some lettuce (yes, greens that are actually green and not out of a tin or overcooked). Then it was ice cream for pudding. It is slightly weird eating ice cream whilst looking out of the window at icebergs and ice-clad mountains, but nice all the same!

Over and out.....


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A note on the blog - one of my blog assistants, Phoebe's Uncle Francois, is going to add some links to interesting facts about Rothera. So you can enjoy some photos and the Rothera webcam from those (since the internet connection here is really too slow for me to do much uploading). Whilst I can see comments at the moment, I will not be able to see anything you post on here after I leave Rothera.... Also I will not be able to post as frequently after next week!