WINTER ON THE ICE
Marine biologist Joseph Marlow recalls the eight months he spent wintering in Antarctica
Marine biologist Joseph Marlow fondly recalls the eight months he spent wintering in Antarctica while conducting research.
It’s mid-morning in early May 2020 and the sun has yet to rise. The only light comes from the distant glow of a receding ship and the flares burning in our hands. The ship is the RSS James Clark Ross and it’s carrying the last of the departing summer staff away from Rothera, a British Antarctic research station on the Antarctic Peninsula. We burn the flares as a farewell to our colleagues and to mark the beginning of winter – four months (or so we thought) alone on the ice during which I and the 26 other members of our wintering team wouldn’t see another soul.
As the ship sailed into the distance, I and the rest of my team couldn’t help but smile. Contrary to what you might expect, this was the moment for which we had been waiting since we began our training in the UK almost a year before. While the majority of people will never be fortunate enough to visit the frozen continent, far fewer have the opportunity to experience an Antarctic winter and we knew it.
Most of the wintering team weren’t scientists (the vast majority of the science is done during the summer months), but rather the useful people who kept our home functioning: electricians, mechanics, plumbers, carpenters, a chef and a doctor. Beyond that, there were five field guides, a meteorologist, an atmospheric
scientist and four members of the marine science team, including myself. All but two of us had never wintered before. These people would be my family in the coming months and in a bizarre twist of fate, despite our remoteness, we found ourselves far less isolated than those back home living with Covid-19.
As one of the only Antarctic research stations to operate a year-round dive team, Rothera was the perfect location to conduct my research. As a benthic ecologist, I’m interested in life on the seabed and, at the poles, the creatures that thrive so far down face challenges encountered nowhere else on the planet. It partly comes down to the extreme seasonal differences; in the summer, with 24 hours of sunlight and (relatively) warm temperatures, the ocean is open and packed full of planktonic food, but during the winter, the sea is frozen and barren. Understanding how animals on the seabed cope with these seasonal extremes was why I was in Antarctica and after a successful summer season, I was eager to see what the winter would bring.
We quickly settled in to day-to-day life, which is more mundane and comfortable than you might imagine. Living standards have come on a long way since the early expeditions of Scott and Amundsen more than 100 years ago; we work nine-to-five, have ensuite bedrooms, eat incredibly well and have a multitude of recreational options for our free time. What differs from back home is that it’s –20°C outside and frequently blowing a 50knot blizzard. Getting to work in the morning is that much trickier when you have to dig out six feet of snow from your door, find your way to the office in white-out conditions and then spend another half an hour digging out that building’s door just so you can get in. The funny thing is how quickly you get used to it.
For those of us in the marine science team, early winter was a frustrating time as the sea had frozen over but the ice wasn’t yet thick enough for us to travel out on and hence to dive through. Nevertheless, it’s difficult to be bored in Antarctica and I occupied my time in the carpenter’s workshop, discovering a love for woodwork (ironic given that I was on the only continent without a single tree). My colleagues either busied themselves with bits and bobs that they hadn’t had the time for in the summer or headed off to ski the local slopes.
Soon, however, we had plenty to occupy us, as the much anticipated ‘winter trips’ began. Ostensibly, these week-long trips were there to provide us with deep field training so that we could venture out the following summer, but we all viewed them as Antarctic camping holidays. Paired with a trusty field guide to show us the ropes (literally in many cases) we set forth on our snowmobiles, towing sledges laden with all the gear we would need out on the ice. Camping just over
Camping just over an hour’s ride from base was like entering a different world and it was the first time I felt as though I was really experiencing Antarctica
an hour’s ride from base was like entering a different world and it was the first time I felt like I was really experiencing Antarctica. Those 50-knot blizzards took on a very different tone when I was lying awake at night praying that they weren’t going to blow my tent away. Likewise, just getting from A to B suddenly became quite treacherous; all around were hidden crevasses just waiting to swallow you up. It was at this point that I developed a deep appreciation for my field guide, Sam, who not only endeavoured to show me a good time but also to stop me from wandering off a cliff or falling into an icy abyss. He manged to do both and we spent a happy week climbing mountains, descending crevasses and attempting, but inevitably failing, to construct an igloo.
As May rolled into June, the temperature continued to drop and we gradually began to run out of daylight, until eventually there was none at all. As is tradition, sun-down was marked by the lowering of the station’s
Union Jack by the oldest winterer, Daze, a veteran of 13 winters. The flag wouldn’t be raised again for another eight weeks, when the sun finally reappeared above the horizon. The sun wasn’t gone entirely, just lurking below the skyline, which meant our days, although short, were bathed in the most magnificent twilight. This was also a period of the most fantastic night skies; with no other source of light pollution for hundreds of miles, on clear nights, the Milky Way dazzled overhead.
Mid-winter is by far the biggest celebration in the Antarctic calendar, far outstripping Christmas, which feels a bit odd with 24 hours of daylight, despite all the snow. Much of the traditional festivities date back to Scott’s first Antarctic expedition in 1902 and I believe he wouldn’t have found ours too dissimilar. Never keen to miss the chance for a good holiday, we took the entire week off. The biggest and most important day was midwinter’s day itself, celebrated with the exchanging of gifts and a magnificent meal. The culmination of months of hard work and secrecy, it was a relief to finally relinquish our handmade gifts to their unsuspecting recipients. With a dedicated carpentry shed, metal workshop and craft room on site, not to mention a wealth of expertise among the team, the quality of the gifts was intimidatingly high, but no-one was left disappointed. Finally, it was over to the station chef, Ollie, to deliver a sumptuous feast – no easy feat when you consider we had run out of fresh fruit and vegetables weeks before. The rest of the week was spent relaxing and enjoying some more modern traditions, including a group viewing of John Carpenter’s 1982 Antarctic horror flick
Mid-winter is by far the biggest celebration in the Antarctic calendar, far outstripping Christmas, which feels a bit odd with 24 hours of daylight
The Thing, a round of mid-winter Olympics, including such classics as ‘human-curling’ and, ultimately, a series of snowmobile races around the base, which caused no small amount of angst for the station doctor. Thankfully, we all survived unharmed.
In late July, the day that I and the marine team had been waiting for finally arrived. After multiple trips out onto the sea ice, it was at last decreed that it was thick enough for us to begin diving operations. Diving through a small hole cut through the ice, where only months earlier we had rolled off the side of a boat, was a peculiar, yet incredibly rewarding experience. The water was amazingly clear and all around us were the submerged undersides of vast icebergs whose protruding tips we had barely noticed on the surface.
I was on the hunt for sea cucumbers, which form a dense mat of feeding tentacles on the seabed during summer but now, with little food in the water, had all retreated under rocks. Having collected enough animals for our aquaria, we took the time to look up and take in the majesty of the glowing ceiling of ice above our heads. Sadly, the dives were very short; the water temperature was –2°C and after less than half an hour, our hands
became numb and useless. It was even worse on the surface – our wet dive suits froze solid as soon as we exited the water. By then, the sun had finally returned to the sky and although we missed the incredible twilight of the previous months, we also welcomed the feel of the sun’s rays on our now very pale skin.
During the summer months, the water and sky around Rothera teem with wildlife, but as the winter progressed, all of this life emigrated either north or to the distant ice edge and Rothera was left eerily quiet. The only real exceptions were crabeater seals, which exploited cracks in the sea ice (and occasionally our dive holes) to come up to breathe, and Weddell seals, which maintained their own breathing holes with the rasping of their teeth. Weddell seals give birth to their pups on the ice and in September, the area around the station seemed to get a new mum and pup every day. The silence that had prevailed only weeks before was now replaced by the mewing sounds of baby seals as they harassed their mothers for milk. The pups stay with their mothers for up to seven weeks and during that time, we watched as they quadrupled in size before they left their mothers (and us) to seek their independence.
The departure of the seal pups happened not a moment too soon, as much of the sea ice was blown out of the local bays in early October. The loss of this ice was a disappointment for those of us in the marine science team as ice-diving was a special activity that we knew we were unlikely to get a chance to repeat. Nevertheless, the now-open seas allowed us to visit our more distant dive sites and heralded the return of much of the wildlife that