Just a very quick one to say, I’m ready to go!
We’re leaving tomorrow evening on a flight from London Heathrow to Cape Town and we should arrive to our destination around 1100 SAST on Monday. We’re boarding the Shack (RRS Ernest Shackleton) and setting sail either the same day or the day after.
This is the moment I’ve been waiting for for the last eight months, or fifteen years if you take into consideration the first time I’ve applied for a job in polar regions. Here’s a very quick reminder of my journey so far:
- Applied for a job as Wintering Data Manager at BAS in February this year
- In mid-March I got the invitation for a job interview for mid-April
- Went for the interview and spent a brilliant day in Cambridge, learning a bit about BAS and meeting what turned out to be some of my future co-workers and friends
- At the end of April, after two very long weeks of waiting, I got an email with a job offer and a request to confirm if I’m interested. I’ve read that email four times and then it took me all of three nanoseconds to say “YES!”
- This started a painfully long period of waiting to start a new job. I still had a lot of stuff to tidy up and help with in my previous work so I wasn’t idle, but I was really getting more and more excited and just couldn’t wait!
- I finally moved over to Cambridge and started the job and the training at BAS in mid-July
- I’ve had 5 months of preparation before I finally deploy for Antarctica. This includes my pre embarkation leave, beginning of which I spent in Ireland and most of which I spent in Poland, and which was a blast. Thanks all involved!
Now that the bags are finally fully packed (proof below), I’m counting hours until the actual journey begins. I think this is one of those turning moments in my life and I can’t wait for it. I’ve been joking that I’m like a five year old who has been excitedly waiting for Christmas for the last six months!
I’ll see you after I come back from Antarctica – for now, keep on reading my blog and please do stay in touch by email. I will appreciate every message I get from you guys. I also promise to keep the blog updated more often than I have since it started – I think finally I will have something to write about!
Take care,
mike
BAGS READY TO GO
