A Trip into the Antarctica wilderness- III (Approaching India Bay)

Schirmacher Oasis

After crossing the A group of barrels, Gaffar gave me the vehicle to drive. The shelf was still a fair distance away. I had some difficulty in driving since I was not too experienced with the pisten bully and the surface was hard and uneven. So the vehicle was giving a lot of jerks. When I tried to slow down the vehicle, the distance from the vehicles ahead increased. In order to catch up, I used to speed up and in the process, the jerks used to increase. So it was quite difficult for me. Around C7, the nunataks and the Schirmacher hills went out of view. Soft snow increased as we neared the ice shelf. That was because precipitation increases near the coast. So even low intensity blizzards are enough to cause good snow deposition there. Driving had also become easier in soft snow but the speed was slower due to the drag. I was getting used to the pisten bully now. The sight of the convoy winding its way through the icy landscape was awesome. We were like a tiny speck in the vast desert that lay before us. The view of the dark coloured vehicles moving in a serpentine queue against the white landscape provided a striking contrast. It was a very photogenic scene. On the way, we crossed a Russian aircraft which had fallen off the trailer while tugging it to the Russian shelf. It was badly damaged and was seemingly beyond repair. But forget having it repaired, removing it from there is in itself a daunting task. The only way to do it is by crane, and getting the crane there was a huge logistics task. So in all probability, the aircraft will stay there for a long time, and will serve as a route marker. Dusk was now falling. Something surprising was happening. The moment I turned on the headlights, the route ahead marked by the tracks of the vehicles appeared so clear that it appeared like a road. The similarity was truly striking, complete with dividers and footpaths. In fact, I was instinctively taking care not to go off the “road”, as I would do in India. But here that was not required. The alignment was absolutely perfect. Due to the angle at which the light was falling on the snow, even minor undulations in the snow were greatly accentuated. That improved the demarcation of the “road”. At night, the convoy resembled the scene on any of the Indian highways. The pisten bullys with their powerful headlights on resembled trucks on a “road”. During halts for refuelling, the scene resembled that on any highway petrol pump in India, with trucks lined up and 2 or 3 people guiding the trucks and holding the vending hose in their hands. I sometimes hallucinated that I was seeing a dhaba along the “road”, only to realise that here there is nothing for the next 4000 kms. This image of the convoy will stay with me for ever. It was the defining moment of my Antarctica visit so far.

Night Time Driving

Upto C7, our route and the Russian convoy route were the same. But now we took a right turn and the Russian route went left. We were following the GPS for information about our location. For the major part of the way, the GPS points were very close to each other. They were at the most 2 km away. But after reaching the C10 barrel, the distance increased considerably, to about 4-5 km. It took about half an hour to cover the distance. The way to the shelf from here was absolutely straight, to the north. C18 was the last GPS point, and it was 2-3 km away from the ice shelf. We finally reached the shelf at 7:15 PM, as was announced by Krishnamoorthy, who was in the leading vehicle. Nothing could be seen in the dark. We were all looking forward to some food and a good nights rest. But that was still some time away. First the vehicles had to be parked, the Banjara had to be setup, the generator had to be started and meals had to be prepared. The vehicles had to be parked in an orderly manner, some distance away from each other. This was because a snow drift had already started and if there was a blizzard overnight, the vehicles would be all buried in the snow by morning. Then a connection was given to the Banjara from the generator, and the Banjara was heated up. Mariappan was put in charge of preparing the meals during our stay there. He got on the job instantly. Garbage bags were put up, snow was gathered from outside and put into the water heater for melting and a fresh meal was prepared. This consisted of daal and rice. The poori, subzi and boiled eggs supplied to us from the station were put to good use as well. But first it was time for some relaxation. So the drinks were started. By this time, the Banjara was nice and cosy. Everyone was in an upbeat mood inspite of being worn out. We finally went to sleep at around 10 PM. There was a long day of hard work that lay ahead of us the next day.