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Halley

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[ Caboose ]Introduction >> Halley ]

Introduction
Halley
Sailing South
Arrival
First Winter
Summer
Second Winter
Final Summer
The Falklands
Halley Glossary
Halley Album
South America
North America
Kerguelen
Turkey 2003
Mount Cameroon 2005
Technical notes
Links

The site is a work in progress, the 'Album' page in each section contains some photos but only some sections have much text.

Contact me

October 17 is now an important date for me, it was the day in 1997 when I left behind my friends and family and set off to spend two years in a place I knew very little about.

Men wanted for hazardous journey. Low wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness. Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in event of success.
Ernest Shackleton, newspaper advert (source unknown, possibly apocryphal)

Of course it's nothing like that these days. The physical challenges of life in Antarctica have been reduced by technology and experience. The social and personal challenges remain. Some of these first presented themselves during the two months sailing to Halley, others lurked until the depths of winter.

I kept a diary right from when we sailed from Grimsby in 1997 until we reached the Falklands in March 2000. The rest of this section is mostly taken from my diary, which was largely written for my family and was sent back in weekly instalments.

The only problem is that I've never got round to converting the diary into a readable form. Sorry about that, you can look at the pictures instead.

Where is Halley?

Map by Expedia.com Travel
Maps by Expedia.com Travelmaps.expedia.com

75°35'S, 26°31'W.

As you can see from the map Halley isn't actually on land but on a floating ice shelf. The shelf is constantly moving so the exact position changes from day to day.

Why?

This is a question I didn't ask myself for a while, just letting myself be carried along in the excitement and adventure of preparing to leave the world for two years. One simple and obvious reason was to avoid the responsibility of a "real" job, a sort of Peter Pan reflex.

In the end I think it was just a matter of trusting my instincts. It felt like the right thing to do at the time, looking back on it I'd say it was.

Where can I find out more?

Have a look at the links here

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