Antarctica - Ice Station Rescue Horizon

I keep having these vivid dreams at the moment...

..about the ice shelf breaking up,

falling in crevasses and things like that.

I remember I dreamt the other week

that the pack ice was going out to sea

and there was water

and I was just on my own floating away and things like that.

So I call this place home, in a weird way.

I feel comfortable when I'm here.

This is Halley VI in Antarctica,

one of the most remote scientific research stations on the planet.

In October 2016,

the British Antarctic Survey invited me to document a world first -

their attempt to relocate the entire station

23km across a floating ice shelf

because it's at risk from a huge nearby crevasse.

Just getting to Halley was no simple task.

I joined some of the other team members

on the nearly 9,000 mile journey,

which took an entire week,

involving this enormous Russian cargo plane

and days of severe weather delays.

My name is Natalie Hewit and, as a film-maker,

I've travelled to some of the most remote parts of the world...

..but none of that had prepared me

for my arrival on the white continent.

As we soared towards the endless ice,

I began to wonder what on earth I'd got myself into.

I had no film crew,

no backup team,

no way to escape -

just me and my camera.

I was planning to spend three months

living and filming amongst the team

who had been tasked with moving Halley

and as we arrived,

I wondered how this tiny community at the end of the world

would respond to being filmed by an outsider like me.

Halley VI is made up of eight interconnecting modules.

As well as science labs,

it contains living accommodation for up to 32 people,

a doctor's surgery, a canteen and even a gym.

Everything you need to keep humans alive

in one of the most inhospitable places on earth.

It turned out that this was going to be the first time

I'd slept in a bunk bed since I was a kid.

Scientists have lived and worked at Halley for over 60 years,

carrying out cutting edge research

into some of the world's most pressing problems.

It was from Halley that the hole in the ozone layer

was discovered back in 1985.

A breakthrough that led to sweeping changes

in world environmental policy.

But all of this needs to move

because Halley sits on an ice shelf which is threatening to break up,

potentially casting the station adrift on an iceberg.

Piece by piece, almost 1,000 tonnes must be taken apart

and towed 23km across the ice...

..and the team have just three months during the southern summer

to complete the project, before the 24-hour darkness

and brutal storms of the Antarctic winter return.

We were some of the last to arrive at Halley

for the Antarctic summer season,

a short window in the year

where the sun doesn't set for over 100 days

and temperatures briefly rise

from the winter lows of minus 50 Centigrade.

By the time we got there,

work on decommissioning the station was already underway.

-Hi, Natalie.

-Hello.

Get on, Bob!

-Are you staying outside?

-Er, yeah.

When I first arrived,

I was surprised to find that

out of the 90 people on station this season,

only four were scientists

because, actually, most of the team,

like mechanical facilities engineer Tom Clements,

come south to help keep the station running.

-Come in, come in.

-How did you get put in charge of this?

Well, I spent 18 months down here, wintered, absolutely loved it,

you know. Ready for the real world again

and then they offered me a position

managing the mechanical side of the Halley relocation project

and you'd be a fool to turn that down, I think, you know?

I love the place, I know it inside out,

I know all the systems like the back of my hand

and it's exciting and I enjoy it.

I enjoy it, I love it. I do love it here.

It doesn't feel like a job to me at the minute, it's just...

It's life.

Halley sits on the Brunt Ice Shelf,

a huge slab of ice up to 250 metres thick

that is slowly flowing off the Antarctic continent onto the sea

at a rate of 400 metres per year.

Cracks naturally appear in the ice during this process.

The reason Halley needs to move lies just 6km away -

a huge crevasse known as Chasm 1.

Using radar and a network of GPS stations,

glaciologist Jan De Rydt monitors

exactly how quickly Chasm 1 is growing.

The crevasse is actually there,

but there is a little layer of snow

at the surface that covers it up, basically.

Today, Jan is taking a closer look at the crack near the very tip.

Oh, what the hell?!

No way. Look at this!

It's huge! Jesus!

Do you remember we drove over it?

That was not too far from here.

Impressive. It's beautiful.

Are you going to film it as you approach?

-Yeah. Is that OK?

-Yeah, it's absolutely fine.

Clip that onto you.

Nat, if you want to come in the middle of us...

That will be trouble!

OK. Just keep coming a little bit further

and you've got a big step then.

You got it?

CHUCKLING

-Cool, isn't it?

-What are you thinking, Jan?

-It's big.

-Yeah?

It's big, it's big.

It's much wider than I thought it would be.

Just from the surface, it's not obvious at all.

Like, if you see the surface there,

there's no sign of it

and then you poke around and you find this.

It's enormous. Knowing that this is 25km long...

..that's incredible.

At its widest, the chasm measures over 2km across

and as it continues to grow, it will eventually cut Halley off

from the rest of the continent and leave it stranded on an iceberg.

So it is widening

quite rapidly.

It's widening about ten centimetres per day, which is that much.

That's a lot.

Is that quite fast?

Yeah, that's serious. Yeah.

That was brilliant.

That was actually quite beautiful to see.

We all have a certain affection for this chasm.

We look at it every month.

-Mixed feelings, Jan.

-Yeah, it's so close to home.

With Halley's current site, otherwise known as Site VI,

at risk of being cut-off by the chasm,

a new location for the station has been chosen on the other side of it.

Lying 23km away across the ice,

Halley's new home has, perhaps unsurprisingly,

been titled Site VI A.

'Before the station can be taken apart,

'the first task is to build temporary accommodation

'so that we have somewhere to live whilst the move is underway.

'Farmer, as he's known to his friends,

'has just arrived as part of the plumbing team.'

-So, Farmer...

-Yes?

..tell me, what has your first day at work been like?

It's a bit cold, but when you're working, you're warm.

Yeah.

-You've been complaining about the cold all day.

-No, I have not.

You have, so you haven't done any work.

-Is that true, Neil?

-It's 100% true.

You only said you'd got a little bit warm

about half an hour ago when the heating went on.

So, Neil, this has been Farmer's first day at work?

Yeah. You can tell. He's done ... all, all day.

FARMER LAUGHS

He's forgotten how to work, he's been on holidays for that long.

'Like me, for many of the team

'this is their first visit to Antarctica

'and, for some, the isolation can take a bit of getting used to.'

-I miss Tinder.

-And how long have you been here?

Er, a week.

So no more Tinder for 13 weeks?

No Tinder for 13 weeks, yeah, until I get to South America.

-And then what's going to happen?

-I'm going to go mental.

Once complete, our new home consists of

nothing more than shipping containers, some plywood

and a collection of tents...

..and it's up to station support assistant Sam Shreeves

to help us settle in.

So we've just got to make sure everything is clean, ready,

set out nicely

so they come in and everyone feels at home, you know?

That's what we do.

We're the homemakers... slash legends.

Do you think it's an important job?

Yeah.

You know, we're the cogs in the big machine.

We're not the shiny outer plating.

We're not the thing people see and they go,

"Oh, wow, that's a Lamborghini." We're the small nuts inside.

If they took it out, it would all fall apart.

What made you want to come

and sort of do washing up and clean toilets?

HE LAUGHS

Thank you for describing my job

in such brutally clear terms.

Um, I don't know.

I mean, I sort of wanted to come to the Antarctic.

Yeah, thought I could do it.

Tell a few jokes, wash a few plates, keep everything tidy,

occasionally drive a Ski-Doo. That's what we do.

Right. Welcome to the kitchen.

The first job is to...

turn everything on to get a little bit of warmth in the place.

Olivier Hubert is one of the four chefs who cook five meals a day

for the 90 people on station.

I've been cooking all my life.

I left school at 16, went to catering college.

Then I went to work in a Michelin star restaurant.

Michelin star cooking is all very well,

but it takes its toll after a while,

and also I just lost interest

in spending hours doing fiddly little things on a plate.

Also, four children happened,

which made it, you know,

a bit more difficult to manage the hours.

How are they doing with you being away?

I think they're doing all right.

Lindsey, who is my 15-year-old daughter,

my youngest daughter, I don't think she misses me at all.

She'd just rather be there instead of me.

Finlay might miss me a bit more, but he's a boy.

They're more clingy, they're more needy.

Also, I'm usually the one who takes him to play football...

..and I think he enjoys having Daddy watching him,

shouting all sorts of advice. I know nothing about football.

But I shout a lot by the side.

Like, "Great football."

I've learned that's a fairly safe thing to say.

Whatever happens, "Great football, Finnie." That works.

Before Halley can be moved,

it must first be emptied of all its residents and services.

Then, the modules will be disconnected

and separated from each other,

before they are towed one by one to the new site.

So...

where's this going?

-That's the new phone cable.

-OK.

SHE CONTINUES SPEAKING

For scientists like Carolyn Graves,

it's crucial that her research can continue uninterrupted

throughout the move,

so all of the scientific equipment must be relocated

out of the station and into temporary accommodation.

We're moving the Dobson which we use to measure the concentration

of ozone in the stratosphere.

'It was measurements taken with the Dobson

'that led to the discovery of the hole in the ozone layer

'here at Halley in 1985...'

It is probably the most iconic piece of science on the station.

'..a breakthrough that was only possible

'because of the decades of unbroken data

'that had already been collected.'

Is it quite stressful having to move?

Stressful for Kev, because he's coordinating the science move.

It's stressful for me because

I'm supposed to keep working with it all winter and all next summer,

so I want to be able to take measurements.

After the effort of moving it once,

this will all have to happen again in a few weeks' time

to reinstall it at the new site.

I grew up at military school,

so I've made a hell of a lot of bunk beds.

What was military school like?

Oh, you know, pretty fun in a sort of brutal way.

Marching to every meal, you know, church every day.

You know? March, march, march,

"Love Jesus" and all that fun stuff.

It was all right, played a lot of sport, you know?

Packed off when you're 11, it's... Yeah.

Do you think that's where you got your sense of humour?

HE LAUGHS

No, I think it's from my quite strange dad.

He's in the military, very professional at work.

Quite odd at home.

A couple of Christmases ago, we got him a Basil Brush hand puppet

and he, for a while,

would greet friends and talk to us basically only as Basil.

So he would run out, grab Basil Brush,

come in and we'd have to basically chat to Baz, as he called him.

Is it strange sharing bunk beds with sort of grown men now?

Probably if you're going to choose one thing

that people might struggle with the most, it may well be that.

The sort of... The fact you've got

basically no personal space down here.

And even if you mentally prepare,

if you've never actually lived in that environment

or grown up with it, it must be a bit tricky.

Right, there is one bed successfully made.

It's a bit of a fantasy world where,

because you're so far away from anything...

..there's not much you can do about whatever's going on at home.

Erm, so it's quite liberating in a way.

That's expert packing.

Next to move are the communications team.

Central to life at Halley,

they keep track of every person and vehicle

to make sure that we are all safe and accounted for.

Yes, we're moving all of our day-to-day radio ops over there

so that we can start decommissioning the office

and the modules as a whole.

'They're also in charge of keeping Halley connected

'to the outside world.

'Every bit of information going in or out of the station

'passes through their control centre.'

So, can you spy on people from here then?

Well, you can see

the IP address that they're looking at.

You can't see the website that they're looking at,

or anything that they're typing,

but you can see how much data they're using

and potentially what website

or group of websites they're looking at.

So, Facebook's pretty obvious.

So we need to keep an eye on the uploads, the downloads

so that there's always bandwidth available for science,

especially the Met data.

We have to upload that at a certain time every day -

five, six times a day, depending -

and the whole world gets to use that immediately.

So, if Facebook is blocking it

then that doesn't go down well with the world, yeah.

And you're wintering, aren't you?

-I am.

-So are you quite keen to see the move go successfully?

Yeah, yeah, because obviously if it doesn't, then, you know,

I might be living in a tin box for the winter

or maybe not even that, depending on how it goes.

But, you know, we're looking good.

As all of the people, scientific equipment and services

were moved out of the station,

the mechanical team made a start on separating the modules.

Is that supposed to happen?

It's supposed to happen, this is a planned leak.

The first of many.

And that's our heating going off.

Oof! Jesus, that's pungent. Eh?

THEY LAUGH

-I can nearly taste it.

-What pipe is that, Farmer?

That is the soil pipe.

Right. From the toilets?

-Yes.

-It's not the one you want to be...

It's not the one you want to be smelling.

-You'll have to grab this one first.

-No problem, princess.

Have you got it?

'It's definitely going to be a tough year, like,

'because the base isn't new any more.'

It's designed to be taken apart and put back together again,

but with a bit of age, there'll be plenty of problems.

They haven't towed the first module yet,

but if it falls through the ice or something, that's worst-case

scenario, but I don't think that's going to...

I'm sure they've probably already allowed for that.

After all, it's the British government,

they can always mobilise the Navy to come and get us.

Costing over £28 million to build,

Halley VI was a radical departure from previous base designs

and has won a whole host of architecture awards.

Built on giant skis,

it's the first-ever Antarctic station to be designed to move.

But this cutting edge strategy has never before been put to the test.

Basically, what we are going to do now is move this module

about four inches that way,

which enables us to get to all the fixings

on this connection here.

Once we've done that,

we can then get to all the rest of the cables

that we've not yet disconnected

and this module, then, is good to go.

The vehicles team have spent weeks

creating a specially prepared roadway

that's strong and smooth enough for the modules to be towed over.

As the preparations drew to a close,

it looked like the moment of truth was finally here.

We have one more meal and then we'll be ready to go.

CHATTER

But, as you very quickly learn in Antarctica,

if there's one thing you can't plan for, it's the weather.

The day that the first module was due to be towed,

a massive storm blew in.

With strong winds and heavy snow, work had to stop

and it was all hands on deck

to prevent our camp from being buried.

The module wasn't going anywhere.

The storm also obliterated the roadway

and covered it with snowdrifts,

making it impossible to tow the module safety.

So this machine is what's called a Mobile Master.

What it basically does is it picks up the snow

at the front and it moves the snow from side to side,

which, firstly, fills in any holes that are in the snow pack

and also it then knocks the air out of the snow

and when you take the air out of the snow, you make it a lot firmer

so it can carry the weight of the modules

and the machines that we're going to pull.

It's quite deep, the drifts, so it's taking a little bit of managing.

We won't get stuck. Hopefully!

I always say there's no point in getting stressed about the weather

because it's one of the few things we can't control,

so you just have to deal with what it throws at you.

-Life's not easy here?

-No, no,

life has its challenges and yesterday proved that,

you know, when we had a 24-hour blow and the snow's around your knees

and everything's wet through

and you have to dig the tent out, and all these sorts of things.

But we're the only chefs, carpenters,

managers and operators on the planet

that are lucky enough to be able to do that.

And that, to me, is just such an amazing opportunity.

People don't do that any more.

Certainly not farmers from Lancashire,

they don't get to do that,

and it's fantastic. I get paid to do these cool things, you know?

But, as soon as the roadway was ready to go,

there was another delay.

The RSS Ernest Shackleton is the lifeline of Halley

and makes its first visit to the station

at around Christmas time every year.

So, this is my Christmas hat.

This only comes on once a year, for Christmas Day.

It has the smiley face.

-And a bell?

-And a bell on the top.

Yeah, this is my Christmas Day hat.

It takes all of the vehicle operators

over a week of 24-hour shifts

to unload the ship's precious cargo,

so the tow of the first module had to be put on hold again.

The ship delivers everything the station needs

to run for the next 12 months.

From fuel to toilet rolls, to a year's worth of food,

including a whole tonne of frozen bacon.

This year, it's docked at an area of sea ice

that is only about two meters thick

and is therefore much more dangerous to work on

than the main part of the ice shelf.

The relief site is pretty stressful to choose.

We've got a lot of people working on the sea ice

that are kind of relying on the decision that you make

for them being safe.

The worst-case scenario is you lose a vehicle with operator.

Not so worried about losing a vehicle, cos they can be replaced,

but if you have an operator that you lose through the sea ice,

pretty slim chances of anybody surviving that.

There's no books written on this.

It's all a feel, so the more times you come down, the more feel,

the more confident you get.

If you get hackles on the back of your neck to start popping up,

then it's a good time to either get off the ice, the wind picks up.

If something doesn't feel right, don't question yourself.

If it doesn't feel right, get off the ice or change site.

Don't question yourself while you're stood on the ice.

Fresh goods, at last!

I've never been so excited to see a fresh pepper in my life.

People in the UK will be looking at that thinking,

"Yeah, OK, it's a pepper, what's so extraordinary about it?"

But when you haven't had any fresh fruit and veg

for the past few months, this is gold.

Yeah, your frame of mind changes here.

There's no money, it's a completely cashless society.

All your needs are catered for.

The greatest risk here is probably becoming institutionalised.

-Do you think that's possible?

-Oh definitely, yes.

In your case?

Well, I'm only here for a season,

but for repeat offenders who come here regularly,

it might be a real danger, yes.

Before I knew it,

I'd been in Antarctica for a month and it was time to celebrate.

So, today is the 25th of December 2016.

It's Christmas Day and this is

officially my first-ever white Christmas.

That's why I've had to come outside and sit in what's turned out to be

some absolutely beautiful evening weather.

I think it's probably about minus eight,

but it's beautifully still and the sun is sort of teasing us

by making it look like it might set any minute now.

We've had quite a few people working today,

quite a lot of the team are still doing ship's relief.

And so, we've put official Christmas on hold I think,

until later in the week when we'll get a big celebration together.

THEY CHEER

CHATTER

-Merry Christmas!

-Merry Christmas!

Finally, 18 days after it was originally due to move,

the time came for the first module to be towed.

It's a big thing for everybody. We'd like to get this moved.

And, you know, this is why we are down here.

This is what everybody's waiting for.

So we will get the two bulldozers at the back, and that is Bob and Phil,

so make sure they're sat on the ridges and don't pull up,

don't push down, just push.

Probably getting close to eight o'clock in the evening, PM.

One heck of a lot of preparation gone into tonight's work.

So sit in first gear, give her a bit of welly.

Just ease the throttles up while they're pushing

and hopefully she'll roll out from where she is now.

So, very excited.

You can feel it here.

Everyone is sort of quietly expectant, I think.

It's a bit like...

waiting for a birth, somehow.

It's that mixture of excitement and slight angst.

-Make sense?

-Yeah, like crystal.

-Happy?

-Yeah.

-Don't need a toilet stop?

-Yeah.

-Do you need another one?

-Yeah.

-THEY LAUGH

The biggest challenge for a move like this

is always going to be the roadway.

If we were pulling on tarmac with this sort of weight,

150 tonne, on wheels - not a problem whatsoever,

but we're pulling on material which is pretty uncertain.

The roadway has to be hard enough to take the pressure of the ski,

which I'm pretty sure it is,

but this will be the proof in the pudding right now,

in the next half an hour.

I don't get nervous.

I get a stressed every little now and then,

but I don't get nervous.

Let's get going.

Ready.

OK, Ed, Chrissie J,

just...put a little bit of torque on the system.

OK, guys. You want to start pushing, please.

Sweet. That's just what we wanted.

OK, keep it going.

OK, Ed, go up to two, please.

OK, guys, stop pushing at the back.

OK, swing around the corner there, Chrissie. Swing around the corner.

Yeah, keep going left, left, left.

-That's great, isn't it?

-Is that good to see?

Oh, yeah. Definitely, definitely.

One down, seven to go.

OK, Ed, we're going to go up to 2.5, please, bud,

at 1,500 rpm.

-That's brilliant.

-Yeah?

That is absolutely amazing, yeah.

The way it moves. It was so smooth.

So smooth.

Pretty awesome roadway here, gentlemen. She's hardly sinking.

You want to be Dead-eye Dick now, Ed, cos I'm following you.

I can't see anything, so you want to be straight down the line.

You don't want to give any twitches on the skis on the module.

I'm trying my best, but she's skewing a little bit.

Eddie...

down to two.

Now.

Yeah.

Still at 16?

Still at 16.

Three,

two,

one,

stop.

Good landing.

How was it for you, Ben?

Good. Pretty good all the way, really.

You look very happy, Ben.

I am happy. That was...

..a very successful tow.

Much, much better than I thought it was going to be.

I was always quietly confident,

but you can never be 100% confident

cos there are a million and one things that can go wrong -

snap a tow rope, shackle fall out.

You went faster than I expected.

We went faster than I expected.

So we were doing 5.7, maybe 6kph at one point.

I'm a happy man.

A very happy man.

If they all do that, I will be an extremely happy man

at the end of the season.

So the team ended 2016 with the first triumph under their belt.

ALL: Six, five, four,

three, two, one...

Happy New Year!

CHEERING AND LAUGHTER

And it wasn't long before the next module was on its way

to the new site.

Just 26 hours into the New Year,

the project was now ahead of schedule.

Meanwhile, back at the old site,

the scientific measurements carried on as usual in their temporary home.

So what are you doing today?

I am taking the three o'clock Dobson measurement for ozone,

so you can spin the table round to three o'clock.

So that the instrument is pointed approximately at the sun.

Well, what makes Halley special in the first place

is how long the record has been continuing for.

And that it's largely uninterrupted,

and that's what allows you to notice things like

the hole in the ozone layer,

because you have that long-term data set, that's stable and steady.

And so if you miss a whole summer,

you can't say for sure that...

..the ozone hole has or hasn't been growing,

just based on the other things.

So we've got about 310 Dobson units of ozone.

What does that mean?

So the ozone hole is defined as less than 200 Dobson units,

so we have 310 Dobson units,

so basically one and a half times as much ozone

as you would have if you had an open ozone hole.

Depending on who you believe, it's getting kind of...

..physically smaller and shorter in duration every year

since we've stopped producing CFCs.

But it's still there every year...

..which is why we wear so much sun cream at Halley.

It's like a beach holiday, minus the beach.

This is not like any other workplace

in that once you have done your day's work,

you don't go back home to your family, your friends, your house.

You're trapped here.

So, in a way, you sort of become some sort of extended,

vaguely dysfunctional family.

A hard day's work.

-Go on, Rob!

-Go on!

-Go on, Rob!

-Go on, Rob!

-Go on!

CHATTER AND LAUGHTER

-You're not watching that.

-Time is ours. Why not?

-The Vicar of Dibley?

-It's brilliant!

In early January, as the work to move Halley progressed,

I joined glaciologist Jan on a trip to investigate a new crevasse

which had recently been spotted in the ice shelf.

First noticed just over two months ago,

it was nicknamed the Halloween Crack,

after the inauspicious date of its discovery.

-So, Jan...

-Yeah?

..where are we going today?

We are going to...

..the Halloween Crack, which is a major rift in the Brunt Ice Shelf.

And only in October,

it's broken all the way through the surface,

and now it's growing pretty big. It's...

widening very rapidly.

About 40 centimetres a day, it's getting wider

and we just want to go and have a look at it.

Middle of October last year,

we were going up the N9 flag line, and we came across it then.

It was only about this wide,

with nice straight sides.

It was a bit of a surprise,

cos obviously that's one of our main travel routes

that we use to send heavy vehicles along.

When you think it's only really three months

since you could drive across it safely...

Yeah, it's pretty huge now.

I think you'd have to be quite optimistic

to try and get a Ski-Doo across.

Today is the first time that anyone has been

to see Halloween Crack face-to-face since it was discovered.

But as we arrived,

I had no idea how significant this trip would turn out to be.

The area around the crevasse is potentially unstable,

so, for safety reasons, we had to work roped together.

Get myself connected to a rope,

checking those boys are connected nicely.

We weren't allowed to go close to the edge of Halloween Crack,

so the only way to get a proper look was to use a drone.

As with Chasm 1,

it's up to Jan to keep tabs on how this crevasse might affect

the area surrounding Halley in the future.

In order to do this,

he wants to set up a time-lapse camera

to monitor how the crack is growing.

We will take a picture every hour for the next couple of months,

and then if we play these in sequence,

then hopefully we will be able to see the widening of the crack,

and also the way it sort of propagates,

but I hadn't expected it to form so rapidly, definitely not,

and I hadn't expected it to widen so quickly,

and grow at the rate it's growing at the moment,

so no, it is, I think it is... a surprise to a lot of us.

Yeah, yeah. They do seem to be quite excited back at Cambridge.

It is probably understandable.

It's quite an expensive base.

They've obviously spent a lot of money moving in once.

I imagine they don't want to have to spend that again.

In total, the British Antarctic Survey HQ back in Cambridge

will spend £11 million on the Halley move project.

We'll come back in a month or so, and check it out.

Looks a bit vulnerable from here.

JAN CHUCKLES

I'm sure it'll be all right.

People come down here, I think, to experience extremes,

and, you know, see how far they can push themselves,

and push their bodies and their minds and all that sort of stuff

cos it's a difficult environment down here.

You know, if you get a paper cut

and your finger's about to fall off, or, you know,

you accidentally head-butt a wall,

it's like two days before you can get anywhere, to a hospital.

If not more, like, the minimum's two days.

Yeah, I think that's part of the excitement.

Part of the thrill, maybe,

that you know that you are down here

and you are basically as far away from civilisation as you can be,

in a sense.

With the move going smoothly,

the mechanical teams were able to start recommissioning

some areas of the station.

Today, we are...

..installing the main waste line out from Halley Station.

This is a critical bit of kit for Halley.

We can get rid of all our waste water...

..grey water,

just all the waste, basically.

Yeah. That's it.

All of Halley's waste is separated

before the water is treated and then sent down this pipe,

and into a cavity in the ice shelf.

Once this is done, you know, we're in good stead for commissioning...

..because we can start filling all the tanks

and then we can start flushing all the systems...

-Does it feel like you're making progress?

-Oh, yeah, it does now.

Yeah, it was a bit slow for a few weeks and now it's...

We're flying.

-HE LAUGHS

-We're flying.

As we neared the middle of January,

the team faced their biggest challenge yet -

the move of the A module, or Big Red,

containing the canteen, gym,

and recreation area.

This is the heaviest single part of the station,

weighing in at over 200 tonnes.

It is also the heart of Halley.

We're pretty sure we can tow it, or I'm sure that we can tow it.

You'll soon find out on film if we don't,

cos you'll probably be back here interviewing me, saying,

"Why didn't it move?" But I'm pretty sure,

pretty confident she's going to move in a minute.

Bring me a beer when we get up that end,

cos it'll be a big relief for me.

Guys, don't look back.

Next stop, VI A.

1,700 rpm.

How does it feel?

I'm happy.

That's the big girl I wanted to get here and, now that's here,

it is all downhill from now on.

All the others are tested and proven.

I wasn't actually looking forward to it at all.

I was just putting a brave face on.

With the short Antarctic summer starting to run out,

the team battled on through worsening weather

to keep the move on track.

It was a stark reminder that soon most of the people on station

would be heading home,

leaving just 16 winter staff to keep Halley running

for the next eight months

in complete isolation

and almost constant darkness.

I can't wait for winter, though, cos then it'll be ours.

This will be kind of our home and our responsibility.

And every single person will be 100% needed, 100% of the time.

Our community, it's like a new family.

But just three days later, the team receive some devastating news.

The significance of the Halloween Crack was about to become clear,

as we discovered the effect it could have on the future of Halley.

So this afternoon we presented the decision

to the whole Halley team

that we weren't going to winter at the station this year,

'which is a, sort of, a really big decision for everyone here,

'who's very invested in the project'

and particularly a big decision for the incoming winterers,

who were planning to spend the next year or so of their lives

at the station.

It's gutting.

Absolutely gutting.

Erm...

But, whilst it doesn't help at this moment in time,

I do realise it is the right decision

and nobody relished in making it.

It was a bit of a tough one.

You've got to move on, but it's just going to suck for a bit.

The decision not to over winter was based on the premise that we can't

predict with enough certainty what's going to happen to the ice shelf

over the course of this winter.

That's on the recommendation of our glaciology and operations teams.

We know previously that the Chasm 1,

the whole reason that we're moving the station,

is relatively predictable

but with the emergence of the Halloween crack,

the interaction between those two different features on the ice shelf

is too complex for us to predict.

The concern is that when the Halloween Crack forms an iceberg,

it could destabilise the rest of the ice shelf

and potentially cause new cracks to appear.

It's this unpredictability,

combined with the near impossibility of rescuing people from Halley

during the winter months,

that has led to the difficult decision

to completely evacuate the station.

Delivering news of this to the rest of the station was probably

the least enjoyable job I've had to do in Antarctica so far.

It was a bitter pill to swallow, really.

We'd allowed for every physical problem to occur

which we could rectify.

We had contingency plans which we'd spent,

like, the whole summer in Cambridge, and the year before, planning

and, you know, worst case scenario

we were going to a skeleton team of people in the Drewry,

just to keep the station ticking over,

and that was the worst case,

and to be told that everyone's evacuating

and we're going to have to fully winterise the station,

it was like...

-HE SIGHS

-..no.

Cos we're not... At the time, we weren't ready for it...

..and it halted the project there and then.

It's been a bad day at the office today.

But while the team came to terms with the news, work had to continue,

and the following day, the last module made its move.

OK, Rob, just bring revs up now.

1,600.

This is BII, bedroom module two,

leaving site VI for site VI A for the last time.

1,500 rpm, Rob.

Three, two, one,

stop.

With the physical move now complete,

the team had to prepare Halley for being left all on her own

for the long, dark Antarctic winter.

One of the biggest implications of the station shutdown

is that for the first time in over 60 years

there will be a significant break in Halley's scientific data records.

This is a huge blow to the scientists across the globe

who rely on Halley's data to further our understanding

of the world around us.

It will also be the first time the equipment inside the modules

has been subjected to such prolonged, severe low temperatures.

I'll just lift it slightly.

He's good, isn't he?

We're supposed to be draining the washing machines -

winterising the washing machines.

Sure, that's what we're trying to get out of it, isn't it?

As they say in Ireland,

it's going to get queer cold in here in the winter.

What do you think about the station having to close for the winter?

Doesn't really matter to me or Neil.

It only matters to 13 or 14 people.

Ah, you were a bit upset.

I wasn't really. And, like, I know they go on about the science,

but to be honest,

I'm not being... Well, I am being ignorant.

I don't really care about the science.

NEIL LAUGHS

The scientists don't care about pipes.

We don't care about science, you know what I mean?

It's a two-way street, like.

Without the science that's done here, there might not be any Tinder.

There'll be no Tinder? Well, we'll have to get this place up

and running. I didn't realise this place affected me that much, like.

-Yeah?

-Yeah.

I think it'd be easier if they just ordered three new washing machines.

But just as the dust was beginning to settle,

there was another shock announcement.

This morning, we had sort of an emergency sitrep

and it turns out that

about two thirds of the base are going to be leaving tomorrow,

tomorrow morning, on the ship, so everybody's frantically packing,

loading tonnes of stuff into various coloured bags and so on.

It's all very complicated.

Do you think people are sad to be leaving?

I think some of them are,

and some of them are probably quite happy to go.

It's funny how...

you become attached to the place.

In many ways, it's a completely artificial thing here.

We're not really meant to be here as human beings.

And yet here we are, sort of leading

that sort of fantasy life on the ice.

There's an element of escapism in being here.

Did you come here to escape?

No, not at all, no.

I was perfectly happy where I was.

I just wanted to come and see what it was like.

It's a magical place.

It'd be a real shame if...

if there wasn't to be any more winters here.

OK.

Pavlova...

with caramel.

The following morning,

the first of the team started the long journey home,

less than two weeks after

we'd found out that Halley was to shut down.

I was surprised at how quickly things had started to happen

and it was a strange feeling to see

the evacuation of the station beginning.

Champion snorer!

Cheers.

-I will see you again.

-I'll catch you in the next cartoon.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

THEY CHEER

HORN TOOTS

For the few who were left behind,

one of the final jobs was to dismantle our temporary home.

As the walls came down, one thing remained -

a feeling of uncertainty about the future.

I'm really obviously excited to go home, but this is,

like I said before, this is partly my home here now.

It's really odd. I need to break that mould, I think,

and realise this is work and not home,

but I'm looking forward to going back.

100% looking forward to going back.

I will be back, but I can't miss another Christmas.

I miss it too much.

I've got too much I need to do for a couple of years

with Christmas time, like see my family, friends.

And stuff, so...

Yeah. Yeah, who knows? Who knows?

Yes, no.

50%.

Maybe. I don't know.

You live here every day and it loses its sort of like sense of appeal

when you're here, and then you've only got to be back in the UK

for two, three hours and you're like, "OK, yeah, I miss it now."

Like I've said again, before,

stresses of reality disappear down here

and they soon creep back up the second you step off a plane

and you have to queue for something...

and pay for it.

The plan is that next summer

a team will return and reopen Halley.

But at this stage, no-one knows whether the station can be occupied

through the next Antarctic winter.

I felt extremely privileged to have witnessed

the world's first ice station move.

But, for many, it felt bittersweet to be saying goodbye

to the place they'd worked so hard to save.

As they left Halley sitting cold and dark,

questions persisted about whether all of the effort put into the move

had been in vain.

Just as it was for the Antarctic explorers of old,

it seemed that Mother Nature had far outplayed our efforts to tame her.

Gradually, snow drifted back over the old site

and began to reclaim the landscape.

Even though Halley had a new home,

I couldn't help but feel a tinge of sadness for her.

What had once been a bustling hub of science and innovation

was now settling down for a long, cold winter alone,

with just the memories of the scientists, plumbers, chefs,

mechanics, bedmakers and engineers to keep her company.

And finally, it was time for me to leave.

'My time at Halley had taught me many things -

'why it's important to wear sun cream

'even when it's 20 degrees below zero

'and how to make time for at least five meals a day.'

Are you excited?

'But more than that,

'it had shown me how the scientific research

'that happens at the end of the earth

'simply isn't possible without a whole community to support it.

'For now, we can only watch and wait as nature decides

'what the future of that community will be.'