Seasonal Reopening of the PEA - Princess Elisabeth Antarctica
Posted on the 20.11.2011 by Michel Brent
Alain Hubert and a first team of ten have arrived at Utsteinen. Like every autumn, at this period of the year, they have re-opened the Princess Elisabeth Antarctica belgian station. Except for a gigantic amount of snow accumulated during the austral winter, everything was OK.
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Wednesday 16 November at 3.10 am : after a seven hours flight coming from Cape Town, Alain Hubert together with ten other Belgians touched the ice at the russian base Novolazarevskaia. Six hours later, two DC3/Blaster took off and flew the team and the material to Utsteinen were the belgian base Princess Elisabeth station has been built.
At first sight, everything was OK, no visible dammage could be noticed after these 8 months absence. But when Hubert and his companions approached the main buildings, what a surprise : the snow accumulation (which is a constant phenomenon there because of the winds blowing during eight months winter) was much thicker than during the previous years. The west side of the parkings had disappeared under the snow together with the row of solar panels, also covered with a beautiful white coat. This difference tells only that the snow falls have been heavier and in much bigger number during the austral winter 2011 than during 2010 for instance.
An hour after landing, everybody was at work, beginning of course with the clearing of the snow. The team worked until midnight but almost no difference was visible. The Prinoth snow groomers -so useful in these circumstances- could not be pulled out of their garage yet. But when they entered the main building, they noticed that all the heating installations had worked perfectly during the winter. They had about 8°C inside the rooms. Living in luxury...
The team had to work three days to take the snow away. In the mean time, some of the team members checked every technical equipment (everything was ok) while 5 japanese researchers arrived at Utsteinen by plane, making a stopover on their way to their field research located 80 kilometers from the station towards the indise of the Continent. Instead of preparing their voyage, they helped everyone with the cleanup fo the snow.
Fortunetaly, during these first days work outside the main buildings, the weather was perfect : almost no wind and a glorious sunshine. And at the end of the third day, a big success : one of the belgian engeneer could restart the system for the melting of the water, which gave the station a automatic capacity of 1 700l of fresh water.
For more details, see the website of the station.
See also the picture gallery related to the reopening of PEA.
A snow melter in action the second day of the team arrival
© IPF
