When Brit Clare Ballantyne arrived at the place she would call home for the next five months, she found it covered in snow. “We warm up very quickly by digging a lot,” she says.
Clare was chosen along with three other women, Mairi Hilton, Lucy Bruzzone and Natalie Corbett, to look after the remote port of Port Lockroy, some 1,466 kilometers south of the Falkland Islands.
They beat out thousands of applicants who also applied to run the base during the Antarctic summer for the UK Antarctic Heritage Fund, which helps conserve British historic sites and monuments on the Antarctic Peninsula.
What was once a British military base and research station now consists of a post office, museum and souvenir shop. Staff welcome passing cruise ships and monitor the island’s population of around 1,000 gentoo penguins.
Talking to them is extremely difficult, but Clare and Mairi managed to report their experience to the BBC over an irregular satellite phone line. “We cleared the access to the buildings from snow, making sure the solar panels are unlocked and working, we have enough water and gas, and we’re safe to stay on the island,” says Clare.
The British Royal Navy came to help the team repair the museum’s roof, which had been damaged by the weight of the snow. Clare remembers the time when the sailors left and the crew was alone on the island, surrounded only by penguins and icebergs floating silently in the channel. “It was just incredible,” she says.
Clare’s role, as a postmaster, is to send postcards from tourists visiting the island to countries around the world. “The mail I send from here takes about four weeks to reach the UK.”
The team has been in Port Lockroy for several weeks now and has established a pretty grueling routine. “We wake up at 7am,” says Mairi, who is responsible for monitoring wildlife. “We had breakfast and went down to clear the snow from where travelers arrive.”
“We have a cruise in the morning. The tourists come to visit the museum, the shop and see the penguins. Then we have lunch and a second group of tourists arrives in the afternoon until 6 pm. In the evening we have dinner, supervise the penguins and do any other task that is necessary required.”
symbiotic relationship
Port Lockroy is Antarctica’s most popular tourist destination, with around 18,000 visitors a year. But it’s a symbiotic relationship: the team relies heavily on the help of passing boats.
“We don’t have running water, so we get our drinking water from the cruise ships,” says Mairi, “and we shower there, too.” “We get fresh fruit, vegetables and bread from the ships that visit. The crews take really good care of us,” adds Clare.
As there is no internet connection in Port Lockroy, the main way for the crew to stay in touch with their families and keep up with what is happening in the outside world is by using the ships’ Wi-Fi. And although they have been trained in first aid, if they need to see a doctor, they have to wait for one aboard visiting ships.
But it’s not always that simple. The unpredictability of Antarctic weather can suddenly keep the team isolated for days. “You never know what’s going to happen,” says Clare. “You don’t know if a boat is arriving in the morning, if there’s going to be a storm. You have to be very flexible.”
Even so, and despite the challenges, they are still amazed by what surrounds them. “Every morning when you walk up the snowy steps of the building, the mountains and icebergs in the canal around us, it’s just beautiful… Seeing the penguins makes you smile.”
Asked what it’s like to live among the penguins, Mairi says: “They’re not as noisy as I’d hoped. They’re really good neighbors and it’s really fun to watch them.”
The team’s main task with regard to fauna is to count the eggs that are usually laid at this time of year, although Mairi says that the change in weather conditions seems to have delayed the breeding season.
“There’s a lot of snow, and we also don’t have fixed sea ice in the bay, which is unusual. Penguin eggs won’t survive if they’re laid in snow, so if we keep having these warmer, milder winters, it’s going to hurt the penguins.”
Clare and Mairi say they haven’t had a lot of free time yet, but they’re trying to enjoy every moment they spend on the island.
What about Christmas?
“We’ll take the day off,” says Mairi. “Let’s make some Christmas pudding, mince pies [doce tradicional britânico] and gingerbread cookies. Let’s just relax, have dinner, anyway, do a lot of things that you would normally do at home, only in Antarctica.”
This text was originally published here.
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