Swapping God’s own county for Antarctica’s frozen wasteland

The island is about an acre in size and home to 4,000 penguins – and for the next four months will also be home to Ben Kaye and his team.

It takes at least three days by boat from the southern tip of Argentina to get to Goudier Island, navigating the roughest stretch of water in the world.

Because the island has no boat they have to hitch a lift with passing cruise ships.

Once there there’s no way off and the team has to stay on the island for four and a half months. There’s no central heating, mains electricity or running water and all the food is tinned and the work manning a base dating back to the 1950s is seven days a week.

So what makes a 28-year-old from West Yorkshire want to give up his comfortable lifestyle in England to spent four months in the Antarctic?

“A friend of mine worked in Antarctica last year and as soon as I found out about it I dreamed of doing it myself,” says Ben.

“I’ve never done anything like this before but I always had a feeling I would. So when I read my friend’s blog and realised that there were vacancies I applied.”

Ben was one of 140 people to apply for the post, working from the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust, a charity which works to conserve historic buildings in Antarctica.

After making it through to the final eight, Ben was told he had just missed out on a place.

But he was first reserve and when someone had to drop out on medical grounds, Ben’s dream to work in the Antarctic was back on track.

“Working in the Antarctic is a privilege that very few people get to experience and to be there in 2012, the centenary year of Scott’s expedition to the South Pole, will make it even more special.”

Ben, who grew up on a family-run dairy farm before attending Shelley High School and the University of Huddersfield, will live with three other team members at Port Lockroy, a former British research station on the Antarctic Peninsula, now managed by the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust.

The building operates as a ‘living museum’ and has been restored to its former 1960s appearance to give tourists to Antarctica a glimpse of what life was like for early explorers and scientists..

It is only open during the Austral summer when the ice is thin enough for ships to reach the area.

“The landscape looks incredibly beautiful,” says Ben, who up until now has been working as a 
senior engineering project manager for VdotCOM Ltd in Birstall.

“My job has given me a lot of practical skills which will stand me in good stead for some of the communications work I will be required to do at Port Lockroy. I hope my experiences will inspire others to discover more about Antarctica for themselves”.

Port Lockroy is the most visited site in Antarctica – tourists visit by cruise ship and private yacht – there is no other way to reach the port.

The island attracts around 15,000 tourists a year from across the world. One of Ben’s jobs will be hand-frank the postcards sold at the base’s gift shop – often as many as 70,000 in one short season.

Postcards are hand-franked at Port Lockroy and put on the next ship travelling to the Falkland Islands where they enter into the international system.

“We expect to get tourists pretty much every day, but if we don’t have any tourists then we will be involved in maintenance of the base, keeping records up to date. I am really looking forward to it. I know it’s going to be hard work and there won’t be much leisure time. But I am really ready to start work,” says Ben, who is in training for his new role.

As well as tourists, Ben will see a lot of penguins during his stay. There are 700 breeding pairs of Gentoo penguins on the island.

The penguins are counted four times during the season to monitor whether human tourism is impacting their breeding success (the team will count the number of nests and breeding pairs, the number of eggs they lay, the number of eggs that hatch and the number of chicks that ‘creche’).

Once the chicks hatch there are around 4,000 penguins on the island.

“I imagine we’ll spend a lot of time watching the penguins, which are very entertaining,” says Ben.

Leopard seals are in the surrounding waters, as well as minke whales and orcas

Teams used to live in the original 1940s base but now 
live in a 21st-century reconstruction of the 1940s Nissen Hut which once stood on the island as a storehouse (the new Nissen hut was just completed last year).

There is no internet, mobile phone reception or email. The base communicate with ships by VHF radio. They can do one email download a day through the satellite phone which they have for emergencies.

The temperature ranges from +8 to -8 degrees C during the season, and during the time Ben is there it will almost be 24-hour daylight.

Food is tinned, canned and dried and is shipped down from the UK by container ship, timed to arrive precisely when the team get there.

“I’m not really looking forward to the food,” admits Ben.

The gift shop stocks UKAHT-branded merchandise, all proceeds from which go
towards supporting the work of the Trust and keeping the base open.

A proportion of the revenue from the stamps sold at the Post Office is donated back to the UKAHT.

Ben will be the only boy – with three women – and the team will be celebrating Christmas and New Year in Antarctica too.

“We are custodians of the base, looking after it for future generations,” says Ben.