Exciting, but gruesome, briefs

There are now less than 24 hours until our flight into Antarctica is due to leave (although delays are looking like being a certainty). Today we had our pre-flight briefing and sent most of our kit to the plane.

The slide presentation on what to expect when we get to the airport really got me excited about going. We will walk on to the plane through the rear ramp and sit on benches at the sides of the plane; down the centre will be pallets of kit. The plane will be guided on to the ice runway by two guys with mirrors! On exiting the aircraft we will walk up to the Patriot Hills camp and find very little set up as we are arriving so early in the season (on our return we will be greeted by mess tents, toilet tents, residential tents and other creature comforts). We will set up our tents and have a snow wall built up by a bulldozer due to the very high winds that are experienced at Patriot Hills (up to 80 knots due to the wind being channelled through the mountains). After a few days learning to cross-country ski and perfecting our routines we will be flown up into the Ellsworth mountains where we will start our science work.

The other presentation was on how to avoid frostbite, less exciting... in fact some of their photos were quite gruesome. I think their aim was to scare us into making sure we follow their advice: stay hydrated and nourished, have good tent routines, wear lots of layers, make sure you don't sweat, wear mittens not gloves, make sure you have no contact with metal or fuel and have a buddy system so that you are regularly checked for frost nip (not serious) and frostbite (serious). And if the pictures don't make you listen to the advice, the nicknames for the conditions will... who would want to suffer from Arctic willy!

Despite the fact that we aren't going to be flying tomorrow we had our last proper meal this evening which was washed down with a couple of bottles of wine... so I apologise for the spelling!

I hope not to update you tomorrow as I will be busily setting up camp in Antarctica. Good night!