The cold night did not deter any of the guests at the most recent Marine Dynamic’s marine evening and rightly so as speaker Paddy Riley had braved one of the coldest places - Antarctica. Paddy was part of the overwintering team for the South African National Antarctic Expedition (SANAE IV) spending 14 months at the research base. In the winter time the sun is not seen as it does not come up over the continent.

“There is intensive training before undertaking such an expedition and we did fire fighting, first aid, rope work, cooking and crane operation - we had to be physically and mentally prepared for the challenge, including living with other team members for such an extended period” said Paddy as he shared with the guests some videos summarising the time in Antarctica.  In Antarctica the Earth’s magnetic field lines converge at the pole and create a funnel-like effect where space plasma moves into the atmosphere, making it ideal for space monitoring. Paddy is an electrical engineer and his main task was to monitor and maintain the space weather monitoring equipment at the base. Paddy’s days consisted of equipment checks, downloading of data, daily graph plotting as well as shovelling ice for water.

There were special moments for Paddy, ‘seeing the aurora, the silence when no wind blows, the power of nature and the time when sunrises and sunsets last most of the day.’ And a terrifying one too as he assisted with getting an ill team member to the German base for an operation. Those involved were stuck in the field for three days and exposed to the true harshness of the elements in which Paddy thought he might die.

There was also a different kind of beauty in the harshness as the team undertook some paintings, many of them a team effort, courtesy of painting supplies from The Rossouw Modern Gallery in Hermanus.

One of the other joys for Paddy was being isolated from the negative news in the world. In all Paddy left the guests wondering if they would be able to undertake such a challenge.

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