Back to Antarctica 2022 Season Blog

Port Lockroy team members Kit Adams and Lucy Dorman, along with Conservation Carpenter Tank Adams, are finally travelling to Port Lockroy as we approach almost two years away from Antarctica. They will carry out essential assessments and repairs to our sites as well as lay a power cable to connect Bransfield House to the solar array installed on the Nissen Hut. The team will also install a new weather station funded by our Big Give campaign and get to work on the penguin survey. While Penguin Post Office isn't reopening in its usual capacity for now, Kit and Lucy will be handling any post that arrives at Port Lockroy. Follow their journey below.

Back to Antarctica 2022 Season Blog

Port Lockroy team members Kit Adams and Lucy Dorman, along with Conservation Carpenter Tank Adams, are finally travelling to Port Lockroy as we approach almost two years away from Antarctica. They will carry out essential assessments and repairs to our sites as well as lay a power cable to connect Bransfield House to the solar array installed on the Nissen Hut. The team will also install a new weather station funded by our Big Give campaign and get to work on the penguin survey. While Penguin Post Office isn't reopening in its usual capacity for now, Kit and Lucy will be handling any post that arrives at Port Lockroy. Follow their journey below.

2022: Blog | Work whatever the weather

07/03/2022

Due to the weather we are currently hunkered down in the Nissen as the rain and wind lash the buildings. However, we have plenty of paperwork and admin to keep us busy. Although our office is a little different, we all spend time working on word documents and spreadsheets. It is really important to document the work we are doing, and we have a number of work lists that broadly cover Conservation, Collections and Operational tasks.

Pictured: trialling the natural bristle brooms

For each task we document the methodology employed, products used and add lots of photos before, during, and after! This can be time consuming but is invaluable for spreading knowledge to our UK based office team and future field teams. Sketches, diary entries and reports have been a rich source of historical data that we have been able to draw on, both formally in the archives at the British Antarctic Survey and Scott Polar Research Institute, and informally as we read the personal accounts of the men stationed here during Operation Tabarin. Maybe our notes and photos will be used in another 50 years! Additionally this season we are taking more video content and audio recordings from shovelling snow, sawing wood to using our boot brushes. I have really enjoyed taking time to capture the sights and sounds that quickly become part of daily life here to share with a wider audience.

We are also taking the opportunity to trial some new products from a putty Tank has used previously on windows and thinks might be less tasty to the sheathbills to natural bristle brooms that will hopefully stand up to the daily challenge of scrubbing penguin guano off rocks! Eco-friendly toiletries and toilet roll have been tested in the Nissen.

Finally, we have been doing a ‘Content review’ looking at items no longer in use, out of date manuals and trying to rationalise what we have on base. As our previous teammate Lauren would say “we are giving the place a really good cleanse!”.

Lucy Dorman, Base Leader 2021 - 2022

Follow the team's progress on social media using #BacktoAntarctica

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