Uruguay’s Antarctic Expedition Sets Off with Int'l Scientists

A crew from the Uruguayan Antarctic Institute (IAU), along with a contingent of scientists from countries including Spain and South Africa, set off Tuesday from Montevideo to the South Pole in order to begin the 2019/2020 Antarctica Campaign, and will stay there for a whole year.

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The Spanish National Research Council’s Andres Barbosa is one of the scientists who will stay 10 days at the Artigas Antarctic Scientific Base (BCAA) on King George Island to determine the effects of tourism and shipping on the penguin population, as part of a joint Spain-Uruguay project.

Barbosa told Efe that the data obtained will be shared with researchers from other countries in order to reach decisions on protecting the marine environment and establishing fishing quotas, for which all-around cooperation is “essential.”

The scientist, who is visiting Antarctica for the 14th time, said that preparing for a trip like this requires “patience and calm” and above all, “a lot of dreams and passion about working there.”

For his South African companion from Nelson Mandela University, Amanda Lombard, it will be her first stint at the South Pole.

After a six-hour flight on the Hercules C-130 aircraft of the Uruguayan air force to Punta Arenas in southern Chile, the expedition will reach Antarctica this Wednesday.

In the field of logistics, the BCAA installations are in for a maintenance overhaul, particularly with regard to the electricity and telecom plants, facilities the IAU president particularly noted because there is “a communications system for mobile phones and Internet” that allows them to work as if they were “in Uruguay.”

The Antarkos XXXVI crew under the command of Col. Emilio Obelar will take over from the team that has been on duty between 2018-2019.

The BCAA was inaugurated in December 1984 and was fully equipped by December 1985, after which the IAU has never stopped sending expeditions there.