20 November 2010. The expedition is on and going. With a day delay due to the bad weather conditions between Brussels and London, 6 people of the BELISSIMA and BELARE team could join those that were already present in Cape Town. We were all scheduled to leave on Friday night to Novo (Antarctica). Weather conditions were good and after a short meal and a full day work for the senior scientists busy with paper submissions, reviews, etc. and a day excursion to the Cape for the others, we were all set to fly south. The flight happened without problems, apart from the fact that getting dressed in polar gear with 80 (!) people in a cargo plane is not a sinecure.
Our stay at Novo was limited to a couple of hours – just the time of getting the gear out and sorted on the runway. Due to bad weather at most stations around except for the Belgian station, we could leave almost immediately with the first feeder flight. By 10h30 local time we were at the Belgian Station.
Shear luxury, certainly compared to two years ago. Almost everything is up and running. The frist day being reconnaissance of the area at the base and around, the second day was completely dedicated to testing the equipment. The drilling team started to assemble the ice core drill to test it (and it went to more than a meter of firn already). The radar team first did a GPS survey of the existing stakes around the station (data still need to be worked out) and afterwards started with the testing of the new ice radar. Results were not yet conclusive, but we have good hopes of getting it all up and running in no time. We are scheduled to leave on next Thursday. In the meantime it will be preparation. The whole expedition will be a challenge (again!), but I am sure will get to the right results. This is really great, since we just submitted a paper with the main results of last expedition, just a couple of days ago. Fingers crossed.
Now at the station, we not have all the facilities of our arrival, we also have broadband internet, toilets at work, etc. Too bad that internet brings us back to everyday normal life. It definitely is about time to go into the field and experience the remoteness again.
