A Royal Visit

[Written by Elizabeth Leonardis for our old blog, So Civilized]

The Royal British Navy stopped in for a visit yesterday. They are sailing around Antarctica for the summer season and they have a film crew from National Geographic and a group from the BBC onboard. Their ship stayed a mile or so off shore while they took a zodiac into the station.

British zodiac with Navy and National Geographic crew

There was about 6 crew and then 2 members of the National Geographic team armed with sound equipment and cameras to document the station visit. They received a station tour, hit up the station gift shop, and then joined us for lunch. After lunch the National Geographic crew did a short interview with Alex and the glider.

Alex being interviewed by National Geographic

Everyone was enormously friendly and it was nice to have new faces around for a few hours. We are getting ready to start receiving tour ships next week, so it was an introduction to what that will be like. We’ll have 12 cruises stop in on us over the coming months.

Shortly after these folks left, a helicopter flew in from the same boat bringing a group from the BBC. Apparently, the guy that directed the Planet Earth Series. They did the same walk around and then flew out a few hours later. Somehow Alex & I missed that visit, I suppose it was because we were diligently working away in the lab. But we did catch the dramatic helicopter takeoff from our backyard.

Helicopter taking off over our glacier heading back to the British Navy Ship

There is trully never a boring day here.