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orangewindies | 3 years ago

Were you at Belgrano? I flew over there a few times on depot-laying flights from Halley. The first couple of times people even came out and waved.

Unfortunately that (and occasional radio darts with SANAE and Showa) was the closest I got to visiting another country's base in my two years.

I was at Halley 5, the remains of which are probably part of a new iceberg: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34578468

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petemir|3 years ago

No, I was at Jubany/Carlini. Belgrano doesn't get any tourism! I was lucky enough to visit Marambio (by Twin Otter) and Fildes (by boat). But we got visits from all the rest (Polish, Brasilians, Uruguayans, South-Koreans, Chinese, Chileans, Russians, and I am not sure if someone else), and others in my crew also visited other stations.

Wow, I didn't know a station was on the shelf that broke! Was it ubhabited since long? We also have a couple of stations lost to the elements, Belgrano I and III (the one you overflew surely was II).

orangewindies|3 years ago

Halley 5 was demolished in 2012, everything down to the snow surface was removed. So that iceberg has about 23 years of the steel legs that held the buildings up, various subsurface service tunnels and 23 years of frozen sewage.

Yes, it would have been Belgrano II we flew over. The only other stations I got to visit were some of the other British ones (on the ship in and out) and some of the French subantarctic ones on a later trip.