Saying goodbye to friends is always hard, especially when we have spent seven of the most grueling weeks of our lives together. After so long away I had begun to think that my sojourn on the ice was endless, however the final week rolled around surprisingly quickly. Our final water sampling day saw some of our worst weather yet with the bike winch becoming covered in snow as quickly as we could shovel it out, and more importantly the skiway had many new snow drifts covering its extent.

One of the many unique aspects of the Catlin Ice Base is that when you are finished with the science you still have to dig yourselves out of the camp and get back to the rest of the world. In the Arctic this means that you not only have to clear the skiway of the latest snow buildup so that the plane can land, but you also have to dig out all the tents from the snowdrifts that have built up around them.