cape town south africa i condemn a few other of diesel electric research vessel the sport. pilot. with unrivaled knowledge of these waters. to ship out into the atlantic and then returns to dock. this is the very last opportunity for several weeks to call home with a cell phone very soon all mobiles will be far out of range the ship is setting sail for a vast and inaccessible area if there's any kind of emergency they'll be no one to provide any kind of help. the russian ship sails self to the land of eternal ice and snow to antarctica. the first officer will now explain the code of conduct on board there are twenty

three passengers aboard the ark a democrat for the rough and for some this is their first trip to the antarctic. but for one passenger it's become a familiar journey this is the twenty sixth time he's followed this route. back a nine hundred sixty four. trip we went. who was the first time i felt so acutely just how far away. ten days and nights of ocean like. this is. as you can see there is nothing there. any of the ships just icebergs. have to look out for. no one to relay messages except. ships or rescue centers are miles away now.

much antarctic autumn winter in the southern hemisphere begins at the same time as the northern summer several times over the short summer season the academics will approach the coast of the most remote. final voyage of the year they must deliver almost a year's worth of food and fuel to the ice stations and take away seasonal crews and aircraft. which. is a tanker or. a passenger ship. and an aircraft carrier. detailed navigational and operational plans are in place but also has arrived and no one can ever know just what to expect from antarctica. always comes up with surprises. you have to keep your eyes open because there's always something going wrong if it actually goes well for too long i start to worry

there's no way antarctica will let you go on like that without incident it's unpredictable. bags containing polar clothing are stored in the freezer when the ship left some petersburg four months ago the weather was rainy and damp most of the time if the banks were to get. they may rot in a warm hold to keep them in optimum condition the clothes are kept on ice until they get out of there your phrase the standard winter outfit consists of shoes. when cheetah. this one is for winter. the other one is a mid season coat. and this one's for special occasions because it's so much better this time for a look they also have a vest. way turn around but did they listen to what we said no they didn't

one of the straps to be crossed otherwise they slip off your back. where we were at the same comments every single year but it's not so often that they put things right. most of the passengers drive a mechanics usually go through about four sets of clothing in a year. is to deliver fuel to the most remote and hard to reach stations. is it ok does it look fine of course it's ok for work not your wedding. of course it's a little loose it's almost twice the size of you the other drivers have been many times. challenging trip one thousand five hundred from the coast.

is a staggering minus. forty . the trucks can only move very slowly they carry fuel tanks to the highest arctic station which is three and a half meters above sea level but oxygen levels there equate to an altitude of five thousand meters anywhere else. mainframe. all those. factors huge groups that can seem strong can break and snap in freezing temperatures the most difficult part is the route itself seems endless ages just to cover about sixty.

and that's actually. you can do anything you can make the time go faster speed up the process you just pray for the best and hope the truck will fail you he wanted to be over soon as possible you just want to be back home and. say you get back home and in time he stopped feeling a strong desire. to work is difficult but the guys are great and you feel good once everything is done. even now i want to go as soon as i can. come soon enough for now. on and talk to. the ocean appears very come on the bridge of a captain the navigation officer and two helmsmen the crew changes on the way.

the crew watches reinforced you have to be twice as vigilant the closer you get to antarctica. for. the region is still under explored and. very long distances. these pictures are from nine hundred eighty seven they chronicle the maiden voyage of the academic field of the first diesel electric ice ship to sail to go. first trip was good a really good one. remember we were in the captain's. having. yes i remember that clearly but we were having tea at the table was. huge bang and the car fell off the table. spilled everywhere.

it was a rock that wasn't shown on the chart. everything was fine in the end and the rocks position was mad. it is. the one hundred eighty seven obstacle course. the ship literally went through a trial of fire and ice. it was about four pm during a tea break we had cabbage pies that day i still remember that and then it all happened. this missile. fire broke out in the engine room one of the pipes burst and fuel oil spill down on to the white hot money fold there was a huge fire even though i feel uncomfortable when i hear

a fire alarm to change the settings on all our clocks back at home because i can't stand the noise of. the ship went through thick and thin it's the best ship in the whole antarctic always gets the job done it's never failed she's really an incredible ship. it's even written somewhere that if the academic or if was the only ship in the world able to reach the north pole alone unaided by an ice breaker would go to the polls quite often now but we still have a lot of respect for the arctic region it's a really harsh environment and there are nuclear icebreakers there antarctica is even worse besides we can't use nuclear icebreakers antarctica is much worse than the arctic region more severe this is my twenty six trip to antarctica and i've already been to the arctic twenty five times antarctica is much more interesting

this trip is more fascinating and extensive it takes at least six months to get there the arctic region is like a relaxing walk. only takes about a month. in one thousand nine hundred five once headed for and talk to some of his plan was to be home after six months but in the end he was away for eleven. ship and set sail later than. it was when the crew reached antarctica it cut through the ice close to the shoreline but they soon discovered that they were too close to crews reaction was well coordinated and fast . as always happens in the weather changed abruptly the ice around the ship stuck together and the vessel became trapped. imagine a sugar bowl. that's been emptied into

a hollow there's tons of ice all over the place and the ships just not able to move we fought against it for many days trying to move out of there then the wind came up and the ice blocks started to shift to slightly so we were able to work our way through the coastal ice belt a little it almost cracked the haul we tried to head for the open sea but it was already impassable by that time from ice it will the. event was when the crew realized they'd be spending winter aboard the ship there's no way to help a vessel that stuck in an ice trap and so some of had to stay just where it was until spring their ship was weak in fact three times weaker than the academic field of this one that might just escape the ice but i'm not really sure. about a form to feel that rove has never been trapped in ice not even once it's very powerful and when circumstances get really difficult we can rely on it we believe its power

will help and save us. more. crew changeover in the engine room twenty two people are involved in here the crews . seriously. it's a really gorgeous. something we have lots of cabbage. we have. two hundred.

here we have. some of the. grapes. get back to. carrots different types of.

but of course it's to stop the yolks going off you have to turn them every two weeks. they may get a little dry at the stations because of the low humidity but they will never go bad . like. britain's cladding community fears its good name has been tarnished after incidents of people in clown costume scaring members of the public the copy cat craze believed to have been started by a man known on facebook as the northampton clown involves people dressing as the circus characters to surprise passers by and public places i know what you're thinking you're thinking that sounds a whole lot like the terrifying clowns of westminster george osborne with his big red nose and floppy feet scaring citizens into taking on ever more debt for fear of

missing out on the property ladder or the equally horrifying stephen king like clowns of ben bernanke m.r. carney wearing their big red frizzy wigs and staring menacingly in through your window at night pointing teeny tiny scored on to the bankers. i know c.n.n. m s n b c news slightly but the fact is i admire their commitment to cover all sides of the story just in case one of them happens to be accurate. that was funny but it's closer to the truth from i think. it's because when full attention and the mainstream media works side by side with you actually. at our team we have to put it right. because the news of the world just is not this

funny i'm not laughing dammit i'm not tied. to the jokes i will hand over the assess that. very. slowly windy. today.

today. they are they're all going all antarctica stations are going to make a field of radio. level for. fuel and food and to evacuate the departing crews from. the.

we couldn't get to the barrier area there was no way to. see. if. we hadn't been able to.

break through. years ago here there were about four miles of. we were breaking it down. to come through. we can't cut through so much faster. now and last year we couldn't get through when it was just. more than three meters deep then about a meter of snow on top of that they had no choice but. it's a long way from the russian. huge chunk of. the home. to the ocean.

for out of ten fuel tanks were left. to conserve fuel for the whole. after that there wasn't although a few containers of spare parts and some snowmobiles were also lost. everyone is. told though the. closer to the progress station. sometimes surprises to. there we were unloading fuel when they started cracking so we had to. we even had to cut it a little it was an emergency and we had to get off quickly it was impossible to turn back because that was close by lots of things happened. we had to wait half an hour at the progress stations. was massive but suddenly

started cracking there was a huge behind us over and stopped. the other way. the progress the critical. pull back and wait for. it turned out that the progress station frontal activity was at its peak for ten days and there was intense and heavy snowfall visibility was practically nothing and. so we had to wait ten days until it finally stopped.

very short window of time. the only reliable means of getting here is by. see. progress station receives its full of food and fuel supplies. some unexpected events. is downloaded using a special antenna this vital information is used not just to plot the ship's course but to select the right block of ice on which to land the craft. i still remember the fourteen lifting off from a cracking ice book imagine it lifts off the ice cracks right after it it was terrifying. taking its first flight.

and assembled beside the ship from where it will take off. to use the plane. from the station as usual. close to the ship. moved down to the ice where the plane is disassembled. that's when the waves came. it started swinging all the way out. i was doing something down in my cabin. sudden i heard a huge noise out there i went to check it out it was the sure. it was impossible. and the fuel tanks were empty water was very close within just two meters so we had that aircraft up fast and get it onto the hatch cover thank god we

did it gone the other way it would have caused a lot of trouble now we'll see what the. station has. caused all the trouble at the station may just help us here.

too quickly. from here. to the.

nothing can be left until tomorrow because at any moment conditions might change suddenly and without warning. in the northern hemisphere this kind of wind would be called a hurricane but here it's just a regular storm extreme weather like this is commonplace in antarctica. as soon as their work was done a huge storm rolled in with winds of up to thirty two meters per second the ship has no choice but to wait until it ends it may take a few days though. the main tasks have been completed. things went smoothly surprisingly it was over very fast i didn't expect that. the old.

heads north again to africa after one hundred ninety four days for more than half a year the crew has been out on the open ocean. back at the cape town seaport there's still another twenty eight days or so to petersburg but after antarctica even here feels almost like. millions around the globe struggle with hunger each did. what if someone offers a lifetime food supply no charge. they can the very strong position against g.m. will and we think that. the genetic anymore the right products are a priest tool tool there is no. evidence to this any

problem with genetic engineering when you make a deal. or is free cheese always in the most trap i don't believe that. for anybody free. enterprise is profit not. for social justice it's golden rice barkeep. put it on your cultural comment watch it the polish face i describe people. a pleasure to have you with us here on t.v. today i'm.

right on the street. first street. and i think picture. on a reporter's twitter. instagram. we'll

. the headlines from march international the world welcomes two thousand and fourteen with a bang as champagne celebrations and fireworks mark the occasion. president putin visits the city of volgograd mourning of the deaths of the victims killed in two suicide blasts after a new year's address where he pledged to find terrorists until they are defeated. the euro zone welcomes its eighteenth member swaps for euro zone and public disapproval and fears that they are joining a losing team. and let the games begin russia's first ever winter olympics kick off in sochi in just over a month we take a look at what spectators and athletes can expect. we'll have more news in an hour's time but coming up next.