Amanzimtoti engineer touches down from Antarctica adventure

An Amanzimtoti engineer who swapped the sunny shores of South Africa for the harsh environment of Antarctica for 14 months to work on space weather research equipment, popped home for a quick visit before moving on to his next adventure.

“The last year was tough. I have never experienced anything like that before, from the weather to the continent to the emotions during the dark Winter months. It was truly an amazing experience.” The coldest real feel temperature Travis experienced was minus 58 degrees, while the coldest without wind chill was minus 35.

“SANSA operates 80% of the instrumentation located at the South African Antarctic research base. Each day we performed our daily checks and system maintenance on the space monitoring instruments. Due to the extreme weather conditions, we needed to do physical checks on the instruments after each storm or on a weekly basis to ensure the instruments were still collecting vital space science data.”

Day to day activities included cooking for the team or system upgrade projects. “Once a week we would full the ‘smelly’ (snow smelter) for the snow to be melted and pumped up to base for us to use. My work day entailed going over each system to check that the space science data was being generated and it was useful data. I then did various system upgrades, mainly coding new programmes to sort, store and upload data.

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“Most of the scientific data is processed once back at the space agency, as it is too big to upload over the satellite connection at the base, so I don’t get to see much of it until a later stage. I do, however, know that the SuperDARN HF radar captured some of the best space science data this year, according to the head scientist at UKZN.

“There were a couple of scary moments, mainly on the antenna masts during Winter. We climbed in a full harnesses and safety gear, and we were trained to work at heights, but this does not prepare you for what the cold does to you up there. The slightest breeze at minus 25 makes your fingers and arms freeze up quickly. I was near the top of an antenna when the wind came up and the sun set. As it was near Winter, it set at about 1pm. In the shade and with the wind, I had a massive struggle to control my safety equipment. Just closing my fingers around the carabineers was a struggle to clip on each safety point.

“I stopped halfway down and hugged the pole and had to repeat to myself “just get down, just get down, just get down”, while working my fingers to get them to move. That was possibly my scariest moment of the year. It seems like nothing now, but with everything seizing up 15 metres up, shaking from the sudden drop in temperature, it was something else.”

Asked how he handled being couped up in the base all the time, Travis said he took a lot of personal projects to keep me busy. “Due to the lack of sunlight, you can start getting seasonal depressed during the long Winter months. Having special projects to focus on helped a lot, as well as multi vitamins that gave us vitamin D which we were not getting from the sun.”

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During down time, the base offers a lot of options such as a braai room, gym, sauna, games room, bar and even a movie lounge. “The closest thing to a normal job there was the normal working hours, so I had the usual amount of relaxing time. The downside was that if something broke at any time of day or night, then you had to go and fix it. This happened during a severe storm with about 240kmh winds that ripped the bases hanger doors open. I found it at about 1am just before going to bed and had to wake the whole team up to fix it fast before the hanger filled up with snow.”

Travis celebrated his 27th birthday there with a special tradition called a snowbath. “Your teammates bury you in the snow in your underwear. It is pretty fun, but rather cold.”

His team consisted of nine people – four technical guys who looked after the base, two SANSA engineers, a meteorological observer, communications engineer and team doctor. The station is 140 metres long, not including the helli deck. There are two stories and the rooms are slightly different depending on where you stay and he reckons they were spacious compared to the older bases.

Asked if it is true that the ice caps are melting, he replied: “While I am not a scientist, I did asked the climate scientist who came back with me on the voyage and from the presentations, it is. That, along with the warmest temperature ever recorded in Antarctica recently (18.3°C at the Argentina base), indicates climate change is taking place.”

Travis landed in Toti late on Friday, 28 February for a brief stay. He said during the long trip home, he was most looking forward to seeing friends and family, shaving off his beard, cutting his hair and a Steers burger.

On Sunday, 1 March he left for the Seychelles for three months to volunteer on an island called Aride. “They have about 1.5 million sea birds, as well as many other types of animals. I am looking forward to being in nature with animals again and to sit on a warm beach and soak up the sun. I will show tourists around the island and all the different animals there. I also hope to help with some of their renewable energy upgrades they are planning to do.

I think 2020 is a year of travelling around the world for me and I have no intention of staying anywhere for too long. After this year I suppose I will figure out where I want to stay and then look for a more permanent job. For now I just want to explore a bit more of the world and see where things take me, before settling down in 2021.”

It seems wanderlust is in his blood, as his parents Jill and Nolan Duck use Toti as their home base while they explore SA in their camper. “My gran, Marge Duck is also very happy at home in Toti. My brothers Kelvin and Joshua are or will soon be in Thailand and Australia respectively and loving life.”

Travis shared this funny story: “At the beginning of the year there was a small leak in my window that snow got in during a heavy storm and this built up inside my windowsill overnight. I woke up and opened my blinds to a nice pile of snow inside my room, so I built a mini snowman inside my room.”

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