MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Endurance is sailing back home.
HMS ENDURANCE has now come to the end of her 2000/2001 Antarctic deployment and is preparing to make her journey back home to Portsmouth with a few foreign visits on the way. ENDURANCE, which sailed from the UK last October, has conducted three work periods in South Georgia and the Antarctic Peninsula during the austral summer months.
The tasking has been varied; from an intense period of surveying in South Georgia, the South Orkney Islands and the Antarctic Peninsula, to the much publicised penguin over flights (which disproved the myth that penguins fall over backwards when over flown by aircraft). She has assisted BAS (British Antarctic Survey) scientists, as they uncover plant fossil remains dating back to the extinction of the dinosaurs in an attempt to establish long term global climate change . The Ship has also conducted base visits to Argentinean, Chilean, Russian and American bases, and hosted a BBC film crew for their making of the first programme in a new series entitled "Under the Skin of a Penguin".
The Ship earned her 'Blue Nose' when she entered the Antarctic Circle to BAS base of Rothera, 67.4 degrees South. During their visit to Rothera, the Ship's Company were hosted by personnel at the site, and were taken up into the mountains for a much enjoyed afternoon of winter sports comprising of skiing and tobogganing.
The Ship arrives back in Portsmouth on 8 May 2001 after visits to Chile, Ecuador, Panama and Florida. With her red painted hull slightly scuffed from periods of ice breaking, she will spend this summer once again in AMP (Assisted Maintenance Period) in preparation for her next deployment to the Antarctic later this year.
Source: Navy News.
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