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Chapter Eighteen - Halley VI Part 2
Early evening, Tuesday 15th November, Cape Town International Airport, with the boys all rounded up we headed across the tarmac & boarded the ALCI Ilyushin IL-76 bound for the Russian base of Novo.
The flight itself is, well pretty basic to be honest, the seats are sort of fixed to the floor, the in flight entertainment doesn't exist, except when everybody mid flight has to change into cold weather kit & the toilet, well, this is a chemical blue box at the back of the plane, if your sat on one of the back rows it's not very pretty, it alternates between the smell of poo & the smell of something really nasty to kill the smell of poo, at least the flags of the countries that adorn the inner fuselage are pretty, thankfully it was a pretty smooth flight, I'm told it can can pretty hairy sat near the blue loo when there's turbulence about !
The flight's scheduled for around six or seven hours, there's not a lot to do apart from try to sleep or plug in MP3 player & try to chill, reading is near impossible, the best bit is probably take off & landing as they project the IL-76's nose camera on to the screen, it doesn't last long but at least it's something to talk about. The IL-76 flight acts a feeder flight running between CT & the Russian base, Novo, from Novo ALCI operate DC-3 flights to respective Antarctic research stations. As the Iluyshin nears Novo as said above everybody tries with varying degrees of success to don their cold weather kit, it's a bit like taking part in a cross between "It's a knockout" & "Ultimate Banzuke" both entertaining, infuriating & pointless.
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Eventually, around 3.00am Wednesday morning, the IL-76 put down on Novo's blue ice runway, surprisingly it was a pretty smooth landing, it's generally expected that peeps muck in with the ground crew to get the cargo unloaded as soon as divided up into piles for the various destinations, as we had a fair bit of kit in the hold I needed to made sure all our stuff was accounted for then see off the first of the BAS/Galliford contingent on the waiting DC-3.
By around 4.00am all was quiet & we were shipped across to the transit camp to get a cup of coffee & then some shut eye, not easy in 24/7 daylight.
Novo, or Novolazarevskaya Station to give it its full title is a Russian, formerly Soviet, Antarctic research station. The station is located at Schirmacher Oasis, Queen Maud Land, 75 km from the Antarctic coast, from which it is separated by Lazarev Ice Shelf. It was opened on January 18, 1961 by the 6th Soviet Antarctic Expedition. The airhead is remote from the main base &, as said above, is only intended as a transit/transfer point for ALCI's distribution network. Pretty much it consists of a dozen or so accommodation blocks, a toilet block, a portacabin office come control tower & a tent kitchen/dining room, they do actually beam in satellite TV from the main base to the kitchen, unfortunately there's only one channel & it's in Russian.
The airhead crew are OK guys, comm's isn't easy, vodka is the principle currency & cabbage is the mainstay of the menu. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending upon your view of things the contrast between land & sky deteriorated shortly after the second crew flew out so the dozen or so of us left over were in for an overnight stay, as it turned out the bunks were pretty comfy so with BAS issued sleeping bags it wasn't a bad night, the food wasn't to everybody's taste but it was OK by me. Next morning we were told that the weather outlook was improving so we'd be off around tea time, with that in mind we filled the day with football, England v Japan, reading & drinking copious amounts of tea & coffee. Transport there is fairly basic apart from several specialist trucks based there & operated by Artictrucks.com, these guys are involved in various commercial expeditions & money appears to be no object, compared to the standard Prussian bus, well make your own mind up, I know which I prefer & it ain't the Hilux.
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As things worked out we spent a little bit longer at Novo that intended as the weather crapped out at Halley & then when the sun came out at Halley it crapped out at Novo so we were able to sample even more cabbage & beetroot cuisine & vodka laced coffee.
With not a lot to do & are departure subject to hourly updates time dragged a little but when the call came we were bulldozed to the waiting DC-3 only to find out it hadn't been fueled or flight checked so we spent an hour stood waiting freezing our knackers off, at around 6.00pm we finally got our act together & headed for Halley.
