Four British ladies working at an isolated Antarctic scientific facility were rescued by the Royal Navy after their buildings were buried by heavy snowfall.
Two days were spent by sailors and Royal Marines from HMS Protector excavating the Port Lockroy site.
The roof of Bransfield Hut, which houses a museum, souvenir store, and the most remote post office in the world, was repaired.
The women outcompeted 6,000 applications for the position of managing the base and sharing the island with a colony of Gentoo penguins.
After the coronavirus epidemic, Clare Ballantyne, Mairi Hilton, Natalie Corbett, and Lucy Bruzzone agreed to restart the facility 9,000 miles from the United Kingdom in October.
They were preparing for the austral summer, which occurs between November and February in the southern hemisphere when heavy snowfall between two and four meters (six to twelve feet) in depth fell. They were assisted by three other departing staff members.
The HMS Protector crew moved several tonnes of snow and performed temporary repairs.
Traditional naval ship damage control measures involving wooden posts and blocks, according to the engineers, were utilized to stabilize the structure.
The ice patrol ship performs regular visits to multinational bases on the frozen continent, such as Port Lockroy, providing supplies and assisting scientific studies by the United Kingdom and other nations.
As a member of the rescue crew, Warrant Officer First Class Lee “Rattler” Morgan was “amazed” by “the sheer amount of snow,” noting that the buildings had “almost gone.”
“It is beneficial for the crew to go ashore and assist. The sailors were ecstatic to begin working on such a noble endeavor.”
The crew can now resume their five-month assignment at Port Lockroy, a former whaling station that has been transformed into a tourist destination frequented by approximately 20,000 visitors throughout the summer.
During their time at the facility, the four have given up running water, flushing toilets, Wi-Fi, and weekly communication with their loved ones.
When pressed about sacrificing creature comforts, however, the four stated that they could not pass up the opportunity to work on the island.
Ms. Corbett, who was in charge of managing the gift store at the museum, was a newlywed when she assumed this position.
The 31-year-old Hampshire native referred to the vacation as a “solo honeymoon.”
“Who wouldn’t want to spend five months working on a penguin-filled island in one of the world’s most remote locations?” she said.
Ms. Ballantyne, a native of Lincolnshire, had recently finished a master’s degree in earth science at Oxford.
During her tenure, the 23-year-old will handle around 80,000 greeting cards that are shipped annually from the site to more than 100 nations.
Ms. Hilton, a conservation biologist from Bo’ness, Scotland, close to Falkirk, is responsible for tracking the number of Gentoo penguins that inhabit the bay.
Ms. Bruzzone, a native of London who has previously spent three months in Svalbard as the expedition’s principal scientist, is the base leader, overseeing the staff and directing all ship trips to the island.
