On 9 of January, after 7 days on the boat, we finally flew by helicopter to our new home: Dumont Durville Station (DDU). The station is quite big and now in summer can accomodate around 80 people. And it provides all the facilities to spend a confortable winter: big winter dormitory building with 42 places, small hospital, living room and kitchen building,laboratories (geophysics, biology, glaciology and meteorology),electricity and water supply building, post office... The station is located on the french antartic territory, Terre Adélie, on a small island, 5 km far from the continent. During winter and spring the sea is frozen so it allows to go for long walks around the archipel, but during december and january the pack thaws and we get stuck on the island, till the end of march. In summer the island is unhabited by a large colony of Adelie penguins: around 8000 couples are here now for the reproduction season.
Landing at DDU
