www.AntarcticGuide.com
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2017630544_apeubritainfalklands.html

UK warns Argentina regarding the Falklands
The British government summoned Argentina’s top diplomat to the Foreign Office on Wednesday to explain his country’s decision to ask 20 leading companies to stop importing British products and supplies because of the dispute over the Falkland Islands.

By DAVID STRINGER
Associated Press

The British government summoned Argentina’s top diplomat to the Foreign Office on Wednesday to explain his country’s decision to ask 20 leading companies to stop importing British products and supplies because of the dispute over the Falkland Islands.

Argentine Industry Minister Debora Giorgi told the companies Tuesday they should replace British imports with products from other nations as Argentina stepped up its attempt to pressure London to negotiate about the sovereignty of the islands.

Tensions are rising ahead of the anniversary of the brief war between Argentina and Britain over the Falklands, which began on April 2, 1982, and saw more than 900 people die.

Britain’s Foreign Office raised its concerns about the imports to Argentine charge d’affaires Osvaldo Marsico, who it said is expected to “report back to Buenos Aires for urgent clarification.” Marsico is Argentina’s chief diplomat in Britain, as the country has not had a full ambassador since 2008.

“We made clear that such actions against legitimate commercial activity were a matter of concern not just for the UK, but for the EU as a whole, and that we expect the EU to lodge similar concerns with Argentine authorities,” Britain’s Foreign Office said in a statement Wednesday.

Argentina’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement later in the day indicating the South American government hoped to use Britain’s trade complaint as a way to persuade the European Union to look at the sovereignty dispute.

EU members will be able to “check violations of the United nations resolutions on the part of Britain,” the statement said.

A British Foreign Office spokesman, speaking on customary condition of anonymity in line with policy, said that Argentina would not benefit from threatening trade.

“The U.K. is the sixth largest investor in Argentina, and we import from Argentina significantly more than we export to them,” the spokesman said. “So it is firmly not in Argentina’s economic interest to put up these barriers to trade.”

Officials also planned to discuss Argentina’s decision on Monday to turn away two Carnival Corp. cruise ships from its southernmost city of Ushuaia, invoking a new law that bars vessels linked to Britain.

Prime Minister David Cameron’s spokesman Steve Field said it was “very sad that Argentina continues with their approach of confrontation, not cooperation.”

Argentina has become increasingly assertive over its claims to the islands that it calls the Malvinas, as well as the British-held South Georgia and South Sandwich islands. At stake are not only the islands, but also rich fishing grounds and potential undersea gas and oil reserves in the surrounding seas.

Cameron insists London will not enter negotiations on the sovereignty of the islands. He has said the people of the Falklands must decide their own future and claims Argentina has taken a colonialist approach to the islands’ residents.

Antarctic Guide
info@antarcticguide.com
www.AntarcticGuide.com
Twitter: AntarcticGuide

www.AntarcticGuide.com
Massive Antarctic marine reserve proposed
February 28, 2012 – 2:44PM
AAP

An Antarctic lobby group, backed by major conservation groups and celebrities, is calling for a massive marine reserve in the Ross Sea as part of an even bigger reserve surrounding Antarctica.

It would include a substantial proportion of New Zealand’s dependency area of the Ross Sea, extend out to 60 degrees south and be comparable to the area of Australia.

The Antarctic Ocean Alliance (AOA) on Tuesday launched its first report calling for 3.6 million square kilometres of fully protected marine reserve.

Advertisement: Story continues below
It would also be one of 19 areas in the Southern Ocean around Antarctica to form the world’s largest nature reserve, protecting the nearly 10,000 unique species found in the freezing environment.

The ban on fishing and development would cover most of the area where Patagonian toothfish is now fished.

AOA boasts supporters such as actor and UN biodiversity ambassador Edward Norton, oceanographer Sylvia Earle, entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson and 16 environmental organisations, including Greenpeace, WWF and Forest & Bird.

Both New Zealand and the United States, members of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), have already proposed reserves for the Ross Sea, but the AOA says the data suggests a much bigger area is needed.

“While there are two proposals on the table to protect some of it, our report shows that we need a much broader and ecosystems-focused approach if we are to ensure this environment remains healthy and stable,” said AOA’s Chuck Fox.

CCAMLR, established in 1982 to prevent the Antarctica being overexploited, has agreed to create a network of marine protected areas in some of the ocean around Antarctica.

However, CCAMLR is a closed body and the AOA says that without public attention during the process, only minimal protection will be achieved.

The next full CCAMLR meeting is in Hobart in late October.

Antarctic Guide
info@antarcticguide.com
www.AntarcticGuide.com
Twitter: AntarcticGuide

www.AntarcticGuide.com
http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=473606&CategoryId=14090

Brazil Says Loss of Station Won’t Stop Its Antarctic Research

RIO DE JANEIRO – Brazil will accept the help offered by other South American nations with bases in Antarctica so that it can continue with the scientific studies of the white continent even as it works to rebuild the research station ravaged by a weekend fire, the defense minister said Monday.

Celso Amorim commented to the press in Rio de Janeiro upon receiving 41 researchers and military personnel who were on the base at the time of the fire, which left two people dead and a third injured.

The group arrived before dawn aboard a Brazilian air force C-130 Hercules that also carried marine Sgt. Luciano Gomes Medeiros, who was injured as he was helping try to put out the blaze.

The aircraft took off from Punta Arenas, Chile, on Sunday, which is where the Brazilians had been transported by an Argentine plane after being rescued.

Just 14 Brazilian soldiers remained in Antarctica to evaluate the damage caused by the fire and to investigate its cause.

Amorim said that the complete reconstruction of the base would take at least two years, but Brazil cannot suspend its Antarctic research for that time.

According to the Brazilian navy, which is in charge of the Comandante Ferraz Antarctic Station, the fire destroyed 70 percent of the facilities at the base, which is located on King George Island.

Brazil’s naval chief, Adm. Julio Soares de Moura Neto, who also received the survivors in Rio de Janeiro, said that the reconstruction of the base will start this summer, the season that is most favorable for such work due to the intense cold that prevails during the rest of the year.

According to Amorim, the new base will have better safety measures to prevent future fires.

The minister added that the air force sent another aircraft to Chile to bring back the bodies of marines Carlos Alberto Vieira Figueiredo and Roberto Lopes dos Santos, who died in the fire. EFE

Antarctic Guide
info@antarcticguide.com
www.AntarcticGuide.com
Twitter: AntarcticGuide

www.AntarcticGuide.com
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4157952/Brit-liners-refused-entry-into-Argentina.html

Brit liners refused entry into Argentina

By ROBIN PERRIE
Published: Today at 15:37
TWO British cruise ships were refused entry to an Argentinian port today as the row over the Falklands escalated.

The Star Princess with 2,600 people on board and the Adonia, carrying 700, were due to dock in the port of Ushuaia two days after visiting Port Stanley.

But as they approached they were told they did not have permission to berth.

The snub is the latest spat in an increasingly bitter row as the 30th anniversary of the Falklands War approaches.

Argentina has accused Britain of aggression over Prince William’s six-week tour of duty as an RAF chopper pilot in the region.

And Prime Minister David Cameron has revealed that UK security chiefs have recently discussed plans to defend the Falklands.

A string of British cruise ships regularly call at Argentinian ports and UK diplomats were frantically trying to clarify the situation.

A spokesman for the Foreign Office said: “We are very concerned to hear that the Adonia and Star Princess have been refused access to the port of Ushuaia. We are looking into this urgently.

“There can be no justification for interference in free and legitimate commerce. British diplomats in Argentina are urgently seeking to clarify the circumstances surrounding this incident, and we are in contact with the companies concerned.”

Conservative MP and former Army officer Patrick Mercer blasted the Argentinian authorities.

He said: “I just hope they know what they are doing.

“This is another piece of escalation and it will hurt Argentina economically.

“They understand that the 30th anniversary of the Falklands war is approaching and are trying to make political capital from it.”

The Adonia, operated by P&O Cruises, set off from Southampton on January 13 on an 87-day cruise called a South America Adventure, with people paying up to £30,000 for the best cabins.

The vessel docked at Port Stanley on Saturday and then set off for Ushuaia, the capital of the Tierra del Fuego province which Argentina claims has jurisdiction over the Falklands.

The Star Princess, operated by Princess Cruises, also docked at the Falklands’ capital on Saturday and was due to dock at Ushuaia at 7am today.

Tourists on both ships were planning to spend the day in Ushuaia – famed as the southernmost city in the world.

But as the vessels approached, their port agents contacted both captains to reveal the local authorities had refused permission to dock.

A spokesman for the Star Princess said: “The ship’s captain only found out as they were approaching the port.

“He was contacted by our port agent who informed him that the authorities had refused permission for the ship to berth.

“The ship carried on to the next destination.”

The Star Princess was on a 14-night cruise which ends in Chile on March 3. Tourists paid up to £4,249 for the cruise.

A spokesman for the Adonia said: “Following it’s call at the Falkland Islands on Saturday February 25, the local port authorities have not permitted Adonia to berth at Ushuaia.”

The Adonia headed to its next destination in Chile. It returns to Southampton in April.

Travel journalist Jane Archer, who is on the Adonia, said: “Before we docked the Captain told us that he had been prevented from docking by the port director and that we were having to turn around.

“The same applied to the Star Princess which was in the Falkands with us when we were there over the weekend.

“The order came from the port director but my feeling is that it would have come from higher up. There are 3,300 people on board both ships which is an awful lot of money for the local people to lose.”

There are 2,580 passengers onboard the Star Princess, of which 284 are British. Almost all of the 700 passengers on the Adonia are British.

Antarctic Guide
info@antarcticguide.com
www.AntarcticGuide.com
Twitter: AntarcticGuide

http://antarcticsun.usap.gov/features/contenthandler.cfm?id=2604

Turn up the volume
McMurdo radio station goes high-tech but retains retro vinyl collection By Peter Rejcek, Antarctic Sun Editor
Posted February 24, 2012
Army Sgt 1st Class Bart Schrum had never been to Antarctica, but he was one of two people assigned to upgrade the civilian radio station used by the U.S. Antarctic Program (USAP) out of McMurdo Station.

There was one odd thing about the job. The schematics called for a couple of turntables to play vinyl records.

“There shouldn’t be turntables on there,” he recalled thinking.

It turns out there was nothing wrong with the drawings. McMurdo just happens to boast one of the largest — and possibly one of the last — record collections of any media outlet overseen by the Defense Media Activity (DMA). Depending on who’s doing the counting, the collection ranges from 12,000 to 20,000 records.

“I’ve never seen vinyls until I got here,” said Interior Communications Electrician 2 Jessica Lopez, who, along with Schrum, spent about three weeks in McMurdo earlier in the 2011-12 field season to install a fancy new digital-analog radio station system. Two people from DMA typically come down every year to McMurdo for routine maintenance on the audio and visual systems, as well as for special projects like the radio station upgrade.

DMA is the one-stop-shop for all communications and media under the Department of Defense. The U.S. military, as part of Operation Deep Freeze , supports the National Science Foundation’s research mission in Antarctica, primarily in transportation and logistics, including the operation of cargo flights aboard the huge C-17 Globemaster III and the charter of fuel and resupply vessels every year.

And, of course, the military supports the TV and radio station operations. The relationship dates back to the 1950s when the U.S. Navy was assigned to run all of the day-to-day operations for research in the Antarctic — a job now done mostly by civilian contractors.

The original radio station was on the air as early as 1963 under the call sign KMSA, according to Billy-Ace Penguin Baker, a retired Navy radioman who, between 1962 and 1980, spent four winters and 15 summers in Antarctica as part of Operation Deep Freeze.

By 1971, the call sign was WASA, for W Antarctic Support Activities, and by 1975, it was AFAN (American Forces Antarctic Network).

“During my first two winters [1963 and 1967], the radio station was located in the same building with the bowling alley,” Baker said, referring to a structure that was torn down just a few years ago. “In those days the retail store, the barbershop, and beer sales were also located in that building.

“During that timeframe there [were] no disc jockeys, and only music tapes were played. During the winter, we moved it up to the transmitter site and the guys up there changed the tapes,” he added.

Eventually, the radio station was moved to its current location in Building 155, with the record collection tucked into a nearby room. Building 155 is also home to McMurdo’s dining hall and kitchen, retail store, along with offices and residential dorm rooms.

Today, there are three radio stations (and several TV stations). The original radio station is now Ice 104.5 FM, boasting 50 watts of power, about enough to send a signal maybe 10 miles onto the ice shelf, if any seals are tuning in.

The new $100,000 radio station setup boasts some 38,000 digital songs, allowing the station’s 30-plus volunteer DJs to click and drag their sets into a queue. The library includes everything from rock to country to rap.

“I don’t have to search for my music. It’s all there in a row. Everything I need is there. It really eases the pain as far as what a DJ has to do in terms of research,” Schrum said of the new software.

On a Tuesday night, volunteer DJ Tristan Eames of New Hampshire was in the radio station, working out the kinks of the new system by queuing up a song by the Kinks. He was particularly excited to spin some tunes on the new turntables.

“I’m going to play Nirvana on vinyl, because how often do you get to play Nirvana on vinyl?” said Eames, who works in supply for the kitchen in his first year on the Ice. “I was blown away by the records. … It’s a great way to explore music.”

Rumor has it that at least part of the vinyl collection came from Vietnam, and that many of the records were played by none other than Adrian Cronauer on his radio show in Saigon in 1965-66. Cronauer was the music DJ who bucked the military brass, as portrayed by Robin Williams in the 1987 comedy “Good Morning, Vietnam.”

In 1997, The Antarctic Sun
http://antarcticguide.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/icon-flag4.gif?w=450
interviewed Cronauer when it appeared that the vinyl collection would be destroyed. He could not confirm the rumor about the record collection.

Schrum travels all around the world in support of media operations. He said he probably hasn’t seen a vinyl record collection since the late 1990s, when most radio stations had switched to CDs and digital automation.

“They started destroying all of the records, because that’s what you have to do to them. It’s all copyrighted material,” he explained. “I don’t think I’ve ever been to another facility that has a record collection. … You won’t see a library like this.”

Added Lopez, “I think the DJs are going to have fun in here.”

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10788186

Norwegian Antarctic explorer abandons expedition
By Kurt Bayer
4:30 PM Sunday Feb 26, 2012

Controversial Norwegian explorer Jarle Andhoey has abandoned his unauthorised polar expedition in search of his missing yacht and is now fleeing to South America, according to Norwegian media reports.

Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet reported that Andhoey had informed his lawyer that his mission was accomplished and that he was sailing north, away from Antarctica.

Last year, Andhoey and a companion were crossing the ice in Antarctica on quad bikes when their support yacht Berserk sank in a storm in the Ross Sea with three crew members on board.

No trace was ever found of either the boat or its crew.

The self-proclaimed viking is sailing a 16m yacht, Nilaya, through the same area trying to locate the missing boat and discover why the last expedition had failed.

Andhoey, 34, fled immigration authorities in New Zealand a month ago while planning his illegal polar expedition.

And now he has ruled out a return to New Zealand as he and his crew believe they are likely to face prosecution here over their journey to Antarctica.

His crew includes New Zealander Busby Noble, who claims he was an accidental stowaway after being asleep aboard Andhoey’s boat when it sailed out of Auckland in haste.

Lawyer Nils Jorgen Vordah said he had talked to Andhoey via satellite phone on Friday when he admitted giving up on the search for his missing yacht and was preparing to sail through a 200 nautical mile ice-belt.

Vordah told the Dagbladet newspaper: “There were no other circumstances which had occurred to make him give up the search. Their plans are now completed and they have decided to sail from the area and head north. But now Jarle has new questions he wants answered.”

The lawyer said that Andhoey was prepared to meet any criticism in his homeland.

There was no mention of whether Busby Noble would travel with Andhoey to South America or whether he would try to return to New Zealand. Andhoey and his crew believed they would face prosecution if they returned to New Zealand for sailing into Antarctic waters without the proper authorisation.

Antarctic Guide
info@antarcticguide.com
www.AntarcticGuide.com
Twitter: AntarcticGuide

www.AntarcticGuide.com
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/breaking-news/nz-explorer-claims-first-in-antarctica/story-fn3dxity-1226280757084

NZ explorer claims first in Antarctica
From:AAP
February 24, 2012 3:48PM

QUEENSTOWN-based mountain guide and explorer Aaron Halstead is claiming a world first with the ascent of the highest summit on the most remote island on Earth.

Halstead led three others to the 780-metre icy summit of the Antarctic island Bouvet on Monday.

Bouvet Island is recognised as the most remote island in the world – being 1750km away from the nearest land, in Antarctica – and its interior had never been explored.

The ascent was part of an 11,000km expedition sailing from Cape Horn in South America via several remote Antarctic Islands, including Bouvet, to the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa.

Halstead, 40, making his 21st expedition to Antarctica, said getting ashore on Bouvet was the greatest challenge, as the island is surrounded by steep glacial faces and cliffs, and battered by Antarctic swells.

“Once I had negotiated a route up the cliffs, we achieved the summit via a long crevasse ridden glacial approach, with a final summit pyramid to climb,” he said in a statement from Antarctica.

“Until a few years ago, more people had stood on the Moon than the shores of Bouvet.
“To be the first to explore the interior of the island was truly a privilege.”

Antarctic Guide
info@antarcticguide.com
www.AntarcticGuide.com
Twitter: AntarcticGuide

www.AntarcticGuide.com
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jeremywarner/100015225/argentinas-never-ending-trajedy/

Argentina’s never-ending tragedy
By Jeremy Warner Economics Last updated: February 24th, 2012

Despite appearances, Argentina is an economic basket case again
I’m not going to get into the rights and wrongs of Argentina’s claim on the Falklands, but if I were a Falkland islander, I’d continue to avoid the embrace, well meaning or otherwise, of these Latinos of the South Atlantic like the plague – for, largely unreported by the Western press, Argentina is once more an economic basket case.
But how can that be? Since abandoning the folly of its fixed exchange rate regime with the dollar, Argentina has surely come on in leaps and bounds, right?
Wrong, though that has certainly been the narrative regularly trotted out by opponents of the euro, who frequently point to Argentina to demonstrate the merits of free floating over fixed exchange rate regimes. I’ve even used it myself. Unfortunately, Argentina far from proves the case, as I’ve been discovering in the past few days in researching the Argentine economy. With Greece and possibly others set to exit the eurozone over the next year or two, it’s worth exploring the lessons.
True enough, Argentina did rebound quite sharply after the initial trauma back in 2001 of abandoning the dollar peg and defaulting. But the climb back to pre-crisis levels of economic activity has been long and hard. Real incomes have only quite recently begun to exceed their pre-crisis levels.
What is more, it is plain as a pikestaff that there is another crisis just around the corner. Indeed, Argentina is essentially already in it, with a return to the bad old ways of hyperinflation and extreme capital flight. There has not been a published IMF staff report on Argentina since 2006, an omission which nearly always means that the IMF’s assessments have become so uncomfortable that the incumbent government has refused to sanction subsequent publication.
Indeed the stand-off has become so bad that the IMF has recently been forced to fire a warning shot across Argentina’s bows over the quality of the country’s economic data, a process which with continued non compliance would mean eventual expulsion from the fund. So unreliable has the official data become that The Economist has dropped it from its website.
This might seem a trivial matter, but it is not. Argentina has been routinely misreporting both its inflation and GDP data. Inflation, recently reported at 9.7pc for January, is more likely three or four times that amount. It follows that real GDP growth is much less than reported.
Once a model for the region, Argentina’s official statistical office, INDEC, has been bullied and perverted by the de Kerchner government to the degree where it can no longer be seen as anything but a peddler of lies and misinformation. Holders of inflation linked bonds are being regularly cheated out of their just rewards. The situation is just as bad as that which led to the meltdown of 2001, if not worse.
By the way, if you want to give yourself a giggle, take a look at this Paul Krugman blog, in which he cites Argentina as an example of how doing the unorthodox thing – defaulting and devaluing – can yield great results. Sorry Paul, but you’ve been working on the basis of fictitious data.
So what’s gone wrong? The answer is that devaluation and default is not enough – it also needs to be accompanied by structural reform, which Argentina has failed to enact. Argentina’s problem is that it remains mired in a politically and economically corrupt past. Until these things change, it will continue to stagger from one crisis to the next, regardless of the exchange rate regime it adopts. Devaluation is no substitute for structural reform.
Given the origins of its immigrant population, it is perhaps no surprise that the Argentine economy actually has quite a lot in common with the troublesome periphery of the eurozone. In terms of its problems, it’s Italy, or even Greece, magnified several times over. Members of the technocratic governments that now run Italy and Greece often argue that in order to become modern, competitive economies, they need the straightjacket of the euro, they need to be forced into the economic reform which they have for so long ducked.
I’ve always found this a somewhat strange argument, for it implies that these countries cannot be trusted to modernise unless under the boot of Berlin. It’s the same sort of argument as used to be peddled by the Major Government in the UK when Britain was part of the ERM. Unless we looked the Deutschemark in the face, it was said, we’d never exorcise our propensity to inflation and economic instability. In our case it turned out to be tosh, but in Argentina’s?
Before the economic crisis of 1999-2002, Argentina had attempted to purge itself of its inflationary past by adopting a currency board system which sought irrevocably to peg the currency to the US dollar. Maintaining a currency board is not the same as establishing a currency union. Sovereignty is maintained and you can in extremis always exit the peg.
But the discipines it imposes are quite similar. Only a bit like Greece, Argentina never really played by the rules; the currency board was never properly maintained and it leaked badly at the edges. It was only a matter of time before it broke down. Spendid country that it is, Argentina cannot reasonably pretend to stewardship of the Falklands until it has addressed its own problems. By the look of it, it’s going to take a while.

Antarctic Guide
info@antarcticguide.com
www.AntarcticGuide.com
Twitter: AntarcticGuide

www.AntarcticGuide.com
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/02/24/felicity-astons-top-ten-a_n_1299376.html

Felicity Aston’s Top Ten Antarctic Tech Tools

First Posted: 24/02/2012 15:57 Updated: 24/02/2012 23:31

She’s just survived the deprivations needed to become the first woman to complete a solo coast-to-coast crossing of Antarctica but now she’s wearing elegant evening attire and sipping cocktails on London’s South Bank just like any young sophisticated urbanite.

Felicity Aston has just returned from her remarkable journey across the frozen continent and is savouring a raucous, ice-themed welcome home party although the veteran explorer admits her ‘job’ means people sometimes expect to find something different in her.

“People look at me strangely when they meet me. They’re looking for a twitch, or a faraway look in my eye – as though someone who’s just done such a crazy journey must be really strange,” she tells me.

Out of her Antarctic layers it’s true that the 34-year-old wouldn’t look out of place in a bank, at a boardroom table or in a library. There’s no giveaway that she’s just made history 100 years after the first men made it to the south pole.

With a decade of experience behind her – her first job at 23 involved three years in the Antarctic – Aston wanted to take her challenge that one step further after reaching the south pole on 29 December 2009 with the Kaspersky Lab Commonwealth Antarctic Expedition.

By the end of the journey, she was sobbing, and awestruck – having travelled from the Ross Ice Shelf to Hercules Inlet on the Ronne Ice Shelf via the South Pole.

Aston tweeted the whole way and was able to record phonecasts which automatically appeared on her website. Not surprisingly, communications were very limited, Iridium being the only kind of phone that works there, and then only at extremely high rates.

A GPS brick pinged her location back to base, while each morning and evening she checked in with her GPS to get her bearings.

For all the high tech advances, batteries don’t work in the cold and plenty of older tech works better: “I had a great foldable solar panel charger that I would plug the GPS and phone into each night. But batteries don’t charge if they’re cold, so I had to sleep with the batteries, holding the phone, with a wire going out of the tent to the solar panel that caught the 24 hours sunlight.

“Surprisingly some of the older technical fabrics are also better in the arctic. It’s not about keeping dry, it’s about keeping ventilated, so the Ventile fabric that Scott of the Antarctic used is the best wind-proof fabric, but it’s too expensive,” she adds.

Aston also sports a real fur trim on every expedition coat she wears.

“I got that fur in the arctic years ago, and it was caught in the traditional way. It is the only thing that creates the microclimate around your face that you need to stop your skin freezing. Artificial fabrics just can’t do the job.”

Describing a number of weird moments from her solo trip, Aston says: “There are optical illusions that you can’t explain. Snow falls from clear blue skies, and one time out of the flurry I saw a little man with a round head jump onto a dinosaur and ride away. I can still make out its shape now.”

Sponsored again by Kaspersky, who coughed up the £20,000 it takes to fly to Antarctica, Aston says there is no way she could have got there without them, let alone bought all necessary equipment on her own.

Felicity’s top 10 tech tools:

Satellite iridium phone
14-watt foldable solar panel
Yellowbrick
GPS locator
Southern hemisphere compass
Phone Cast by Italio
Nordic cross country Asnes Amunsden skis
MSR SGK cooker
Montaigne windproof layer with pile lining
Mountain Equipment windproof jacket

Her remarkable achievement sometimes has a disconcerting effect on people she meets.

“They sometimes say to me ‘I’ve done nothing with my life, and you’ve achieved so much'”, she says but Aston is clearly still coming to terms with exactly what she has achieved; after all, in the video she recorded after completing her epic trek, she admits: “I don’t know what it all means.

“It was really a series of tiny victories, rather than one big achievement. I had a series of small jobs to do everyday. And I never let my mind think about the immensity of what I was doing – I had to break it down,” she says.

Her advice to anyone who wants to do something, anything, with their life is: “Focus on your goal and go for it. Take advice, but take selective advice – a lot of people will want to tell you what to do but most of all, just get started!

“You can make all kinds of excuses, like you’ll do it when you have the right equipment, but that day may never come. So just start.”

Antarctic Guide
info@antarcticguide.com
www.AntarcticGuide.com
Twitter: AntarcticGuide

www.AntarcticGuide.com
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2012/0225/1224312343316.html

A continent in a paintbox
EUGENIE REGAN

EXPLORATION: Edward Wilson’s Antarctic Notebooks By DMWilson and CJ Wilson Reardon Publishing, 184pp. £39.99

BEFORE THE ADVENT of colour photography, the only way to record significant events was in black and white – or with pencil and paint. When Capt Robert Falcon Scott’s team reached the South Pole, on January 17th, 1912, the achievement was captured in a photograph and numerous sketches by Edward Wilson, the expedition’s chief of scientific staff. Wilson revealed a continent with his pencils and paintbox. He was one of the last of an era when the main means of recording a barely known continent was by hand – and he depicted in detail the events, discoveries and travails of both of Scott’s Antarctic expeditions.

The Terra Nova expedition of 1910-13 – officially the British Antarctic Expedition, but commonly known after the name of its ship – remains one of the most famous journeys in exploration history. It encountered setbacks from the outset, with fierce storms, heavy swells and a telegram from the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, who was setting out to beat the British to the South Pole. Nevertheless, Scott stuck to his original plans rather than engage in the race that Amundsen had declared. Scott’s team spent 1911 undertaking scientific work as well as preparing for the journey to the South Pole.

In January 1912, Scott, Wilson and their colleagues Henry Robertson Bowers, Lawrence Oates and Edgar Evans reached the pole only to find Norwegian flags and a tent. Amundsen had beaten them to it. On the descent of the Beardmore Glacier, fatigue, cold and starvation overtook them; first Evans, then Oates and finally Wilson, Scott and Bowers succumbed to frostbite, fatigue and dehydration. Wilson, Scott and Bowers were only 18km short of their supply depot when they died.

David and Christopher Wilson’s handsome book brings together many of Edward Wilson’s Antarctic paintings, sketches and notes to tell the story of both journeys. There is immense beauty in the images of the stark Antarctic but also poignancy, as many of the images illustrate the last months and days of Scott’s team.

The drawings and paintings were created at considerable personal cost to Edward Wilson. He often suffered severely from the cold while sketching and also from snow blindness, or sunburn of the eye. Scott wrote: “Poor Wilson . . . was writhing in horrible agony . . . have never seen an eye so terribly bloodshot and inflamed . . . an almost intolerable stabbing and burning of the eyeball.” But Wilson’s images provide a remarkable testament to one of the great figures of the heroic age of Antarctic exploration, and today’s polar scientists still use the early Wilson sketches to help assess the effects of global warming, comparing them with contemporary photographs of the same features. His dedication to his work and the expedition eventually led him to pay the ultimate price.

Launching this book in London, David Attenborough made no bones about our debt to Scott, Wilson and their colleagues, who gave their lives in the name of science and exploration. With high-definition video footage streaming across the planet 100 years on, one must appreciate the uniqueness of Wilson’s drawings at that time. These images, among the first from this mysterious and unexplored continent, inspired generations of Antarctic scientists and conservationists – not least in the formation of the World Wildlife Fund, the world’s largest conservation organisation.

This book is not simply a reproduction of images and quotations. It is a very personal publication. Edward Wilson was David and Christopher Wilson’s great-uncle. They grew up with his pictures on their walls and artifacts from his expeditions in their home. David Wilson is chairman of the International Scott Centenary Expedition. Chris Wilson is a Wexford-based naturalist whose enthusiasm for nature and the Antarctic is infectious. One of his passions is for Ireland to sign the Antarctic Treaty, so helping to ensure that Antarctica shall continue forever to be used exclusively for peaceful and scientific purposes. Indeed, the royalties from this book will go to the Edward Wilson Memorial Fund at the Scott Polar Research Institute, in Cambridge – and so Edward Wilson’s work continues to contribute to our understanding of that inhospitable continent.

Antarctic Guide
info@antarcticguide.com
www.AntarcticGuide.com
Twitter: AntarcticGuide