Level B2

I Spent a Winter in Antarctica

Two Months Without the Sun at the Bottom of the World

Connor from Scarborough spent the 2025 winter at Rothera, a British research station in Antarctica, as one of forty-one people with no easy way out. He tells Olivia about two months without the sun, a very special midwinter and the day a lost emperor penguin turned up.

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Key words

These words appear in the episode. In the transcript, hover over or tap a highlighted word to see what it means.

twilightnoun

The soft, weak light in the sky just after the sun goes down or just before it comes up.

We walked along the beach in the twilight, when the sky was turning dark blue.

in theoryphrase

Used to say what should be true or should happen, although reality may be different.

In theory, the train takes forty minutes, but it's usually closer to an hour.

poke aroundphrasal verb

To look through a place slowly and with curiosity, often touching or moving things.

I love poking around in old bookshops on a rainy Saturday.

numbadjective

Unable to feel anything in a part of your body, often because of cold.

After an hour of waiting for the bus in the snow, my toes were completely numb.

samplenoun

A small amount of something that is taken so people can test or study it.

The nurse took a blood sample and said the results would be ready on Friday.

squeeze inphrasal verb

To fit people or things into a space that is really too small for them.

Six of us squeezed into my cousin's tiny car to get to the concert.

appetitenoun

The feeling that you want to eat, and how much food you want.

My grandfather is ninety, but he still has the appetite of a teenager.

comfortingadjective

Making you feel calmer and less worried or alone.

It was comforting to hear my sister's voice after a long day in a new city.

isolationnoun

The situation of being far away from other people or places, with little contact.

Working from home every day, some people start to feel a sense of isolation.

carveverb

To cut wood or stone carefully in order to make an object or a shape.

My uncle carved a little wooden bird for my daughter's birthday.

drillnoun

A practice of what to do in an emergency, such as a fire.

The alarm rang during the maths test, but luckily it was only a fire drill.

spraynoun

Very small drops of water that fly through the air, for example from waves.

We stood at the front of the ferry and got covered in cold sea spray.

pick upphrasal verb

When the wind picks up, it suddenly becomes stronger.

We had to take the tent down quickly when the wind picked up in the night.

keep an eye onphrase

To watch someone or something carefully to make sure they are safe or all right.

Could you keep an eye on my bag while I buy a coffee?

Did you understand?

Choose the correct answer.

1. Why did Connor have about two months without the sun at Rothera?

2. Why were there forty-one people at Rothera that winter?

3. What does Olivia remember about the RRS Sir David Attenborough?

4. What did Connor make for his midwinter present?

5. On the windy CTD day in August, why didn't they just cut the cable?

Exercise 1

Real or fake?

Each word from the episode has three definitions. Only one is real. Find it.

1. twilight

2. poke around

3. comforting

4. carve

5. keep an eye on

Exercise 2

Word partners

Match each phrase with the key word that often goes with it. Two words are extra.

to lose your

a fire

to take a blood

the wind started to

a feeling of

my fingers went

In the dark months Connor's appetite went strange, and on winter dives his lips went numb. Use one pair in a sentence about your own life.

Exercise 3

Your turn

Could you spend a winter at Rothera with forty other people and no easy way out? What would you make for your midwinter present? Write three or four sentences. Use at least two words from the list.

Your text is saved on this device.

In theory I would love it, but I think the isolation would be hard for me after a few months. I would go to the gym every day and keep an eye on my appetite, because I know I'd eat all the biscuits. For my midwinter present, I would try to carve a small seal out of wood. It would probably look like a potato too, but I hope it would still be comforting.

Full transcript

Show the transcript

Connor

The ship gave us one long blast on its horn. We were all standing on the wharf with red flares in our hands.

Olivia

Like a party?

Connor

Sort of. Then it went round the point and disappeared…

Olivia

…and that was it?

Connor

That was it. Forty-one of us, and no easy way out until October.

Olivia

So what did you do?

Connor

Stood there for a bit. Then somebody asked who was making the tea.

Olivia

Tea? At a moment like that?

Connor

Tea means dinner where I'm from.

Olivia

This is Aprendos English, level B2. I'm Olivia. My guest today spent the whole 2025 Antarctic winter at Rothera, a British research station on an island off the Antarctic Peninsula. Connor is twenty-six and grew up in Scarborough, on the Yorkshire coast. For almost a year and a half, he was the station's marine assistant.

Connor

Hiya, Olivia. Cheers for having me.

Olivia

I have to start with the darkness. Six months of total night, right?

Connor

That's the South Pole, which is a very different place.

Olivia

Oh. So how long did you get?

Connor

Rothera is just south of the Antarctic Circle, so the sun only disappears for a few weeks. However, there are mountains on the northern side of the station, and they hide it for much longer. Ours went down behind them in May, and it didn't come back over the top until July.

Olivia

So about two months. That's still a lot.

Connor

It is, although it's never completely black at midday. You get a few hours of grey , a bit like a wet Tuesday afternoon in Scarborough in January.

Olivia

Honestly, that sounds worse.

Connor

Some days it was worse. On clear days, though, the sky turned pink and purple for hours, as if the mountains had lights inside them.

Olivia

I grew up in Bellingham, in Washington State, where it's dark by half past four in December. I used to think that was tough.

Connor

With respect, that sounds like a lovely holiday.

Olivia

Rude. Okay, the job. What does a marine assistant actually do?

Connor

My main job was a project called RaTS, the Rothera Time Series, which has been measuring the sea there since 1997. Roughly once a week, whatever the season, we take a small boat out into Ryder Bay, right beside the station. Then we lower an instrument called a CTD almost to the bottom, about five hundred metres down.

Olivia

And CTD stands for...?

Connor

Conductivity, temperature and depth. Conductivity basically tells you how salty the water is. We collect water as well, so scientists can see how the ocean is changing from one year to the next.

Olivia

Five hundred metres of cable. There's a motor, I hope?

Connor

There's a hand winch.

Olivia

By hand? Five hundred metres?

Connor

Down and back up again. By the end of the winter I had the strongest right arm in Antarctica, and a very ordinary left one.

Olivia

So how does a guy from Scarborough end up on a boat in Antarctica? Let me guess, your family were fishermen.

Connor

Close, but no. My dad runs a fish and chip shop on the seafront…

Olivia

…that's the most British thing I've ever heard.

Connor

So I grew up surrounded by fish, just not live ones. I spent every summer in rock pools under the castle. After that I studied marine biology at Bangor, in North Wales, and got my diving qualifications.

Olivia

Wait, diving? You dived there too?

Connor

All year round, from little inflatable boats, and in winter the water is about minus one point eight degrees…

Olivia

…minus? How is water below zero and still liquid?

Connor

It's the salt. Seawater freezes at about minus two, whereas fresh water freezes at zero, so the sea stays liquid for longer.

Olivia

I'd last about four seconds.

Connor

You wear a very thick drysuit, so your body is actually fine. After a few minutes, however, your lips go and your hands feel like they belong to somebody else. Once in winter I heard Weddell seals calling under the water, and they sound like an old science fiction film.

Olivia

Seals, lovely. Please tell me there were penguins as well.

Connor

Not in winter, sorry. The Adélie penguins leave when the sea starts to freeze, which proves they're cleverer than us.

Olivia

No penguins at all? That's so disappointing.

Connor

Hold on to that thought.

Olivia

Okay, the people. How many of you were there?

Connor

In summer there are well over a hundred, scientists and pilots and builders all together. Normally somewhere between twenty and thirty people stay for the winter…

Olivia

…so you were twenty-something.

Connor

We were forty-one. They were finishing a huge new building called the Discovery Building, so builders stayed on as well. It was the biggest winter team the British Antarctic Survey has ever had.

Olivia

I'd have guessed ten.

Connor

Forty-one is a lot and not very many at the same time. After a month you know how everyone takes their coffee, and after three months you know exactly how everyone chews.

Olivia

Okay, who was the chewer?

Connor

I'm not naming names. He might be listening.

Olivia

So who else was there? I'm picturing scientists in white coats.

Connor

Far fewer than you'd think, because in winter it's mostly people who keep the station running. We had a doctor and the chefs, and field guides, who are basically professional mountaineers. There were also plumbers and electricians, and everyone had a proper job. If the boiler breaks at midnight…

Olivia

…there's nobody you can call.

Connor

Exactly, you are the person they call.

Olivia

And if someone gets really sick?

Connor

Then it's down to our doctor, who has been trained for almost anything. Before they go, the doctors even do training in emergency dentistry.

Olivia

Wait, the doctor pulls out your teeth?

Connor

If they have to. That's why they check everybody's teeth so carefully before you're allowed to go. Flying in the Antarctic winter is seriously dangerous, and as a result a rescue flight is the absolute last option.

Olivia

Okay. Take me back to that wharf with the flares. When was that?

Connor

The seventeenth of June, which is incredibly late. Usually the last ship leaves long before winter. That year, though, the RRS Sir David Attenborough stayed on for some science in the bay. It was the latest ship visit Rothera has ever had.

Olivia

Wait, the Sir David Attenborough? Isn't that the ship the internet wanted to call Boaty McBoatface?

Connor

Same ship, yes.

Olivia

I remember that. In 2016 there was an online vote, and Boaty McBoatface won…

Connor

…by miles.

Olivia

By miles! And the government named it after David Attenborough anyway. Then, as a kind of apology, they gave the name to a little yellow robot submarine that travels on the ship.

Connor

And half of Britain has never forgiven them.

Olivia

I'm with half of Britain. So the ship leaves, you have your tea. What changes the next morning?

Connor

Surprisingly little at first, because everybody still has work and the meals are at the same time every day. The quiet is strange, though, because in summer there are planes landing all day long. Suddenly all you can hear is the wind and the generators.

Olivia

And when did the darkness start to get to you?

Connor

Sleep went first, even though I was tired all the time. I'd wake up at three in the morning and just lie there listening to the wind until breakfast. A few weeks later my went strange as well. Some days I didn't want anything at all, and other days I could have eaten a whole packet of biscuits…

Olivia

…and the biscuits won.

Connor

The biscuits usually won. It happened to loads of people at the same time, which was oddly . You'd find three of us in the kitchen at midnight, all pretending we'd only come in for a glass of water.

Olivia

I've read about something called the Antarctic stare. People who spend the winter there sometimes go blank for a moment, and some researchers link it to…

Connor

…oh, the stare is very real.

Olivia

They link it to a drop in a thyroid hormone called T3, which your body uses up in the cold.

Connor

I didn't know about the hormone, but I've definitely seen the stare, and I've probably done it too. Somebody would ask you a simple question at lunch, and you'd just stare at the salt for ten seconds.

Olivia

So how do you fight it?

Connor

I had one of those very bright lamps for winter depression on my desk. I sat in front of it for an hour every morning, and I went to the gym even on the bad days. Honestly, the gym helped more than anything else.

Olivia

And could you call home, or was it letters and radio?

Connor

We had Starlink.

Olivia

No way. Antarctica has Wi-Fi now?

Connor

Pretty decent Wi-Fi, actually. I video called my parents every Sunday, while my dad was frying fish in the background.

Olivia

Okay, that feels like cheating. The old explorers had nothing…

Connor

…the old explorers didn't have central heating either, and I'm keeping that too.

Olivia

Fair. But is it really if you can see your dad's chip shop?

Connor

That's the funny part, because it still is. You can see home on a screen, but you can't go there, and nobody new walks through the door for months. You can phone your mates whenever you like, but you can't pop down to the pub with them.

Olivia

Tell me about midwinter. I've heard it's basically Christmas.

Connor

Down there it's bigger than Christmas. It's the twenty-first of June, the shortest day of the year, and almost all work stops for a few days. There's a special breakfast, then presents, and then a six-course dinner in the evening.

Olivia

Presents? Where do you buy presents in Antarctica?

Connor

You don't, which is the whole point. Weeks before, everybody draws a name out of a hat, and you make that person something with your own hands.

Olivia

Let me guess. You made them a little penguin.

Connor

Worse. I a wooden spoon.

Olivia

A spoon.

Connor

A spoon, for our station leader. I spent about sixty hours on it in the workshop, most evenings for weeks.

Olivia

Sixty hours for one spoon? And?

Connor

It looked like a potato on a stick. She says she uses it, though, and I've decided to believe her.

Olivia

That's love. What did you get?

Connor

One of the electricians made me a little lamp from an old diving torch and a piece of wooden packing crate. It's on my bedside table right now.

Olivia

So he wins.

Connor

He wins easily. Then in the evening everybody sits round the radio for the BBC World Service midwinter broadcast. Our families had recorded messages weeks before…

Olivia

…wait, you have Starlink. Why do you still need the radio?

Connor

Because it's tradition, and because it feels completely different. Forty-one adults sit there in total silence, and then your mum's voice comes out of the speaker. Suddenly half the room is crying.

Olivia

Were you crying?

Connor

I had something in my eye.

Olivia

Of course you did. And then you all watch a horror film, right? I've heard about this.

Connor

Try me.

Olivia

The Thing, from 1982. An alien monster gets into a research station in Antarctica, and the men there don't know who to trust. For some reason, that's what everybody chooses to watch together in the dark.

Connor

Every single year. For weeks afterwards, whenever someone was quiet at dinner, somebody would lean over and ask, "Are you still you?"

Olivia

That's horrible. I love it. So what was the scariest moment of your winter? Let me guess, a fire.

Connor

Good guess, because fire is what everybody fears most down there. In 2001 the old science lab at Rothera burned down in the middle of winter, so we did fire constantly. My worst moment was on the water, though.

Olivia

On a CTD day?

Connor

On a CTD day in August. There were three of us in the boat, and the forecast looked fine, so we went out to the deep site. I had about four hundred metres of cable out when the wind suddenly …

Olivia

…and you're still winding by hand.

Connor

Still winding by hand. The waves were getting bigger every minute, and the was freezing onto everything it touched, including my gloves.

Olivia

Couldn't you just cut the cable?

Connor

We could have, but the instrument costs thousands of pounds. Losing it would also leave a gap in a record that goes back to 1997. The boating officer looked at the sky and gave me five minutes. After that, we were going home with it or without it.

Olivia

How long did it take?

Connor

About four and a half, which is the fastest I've ever moved in my life. By the time we got back to the wharf, the whole boat looked like it was covered in sugar icing.

Olivia

And your famous right arm?

Connor

My right arm didn't speak to me for three days.

Olivia

Okay, earlier you told me to hold on to a thought. The penguins.

Connor

Right. One day in winter, a young emperor penguin turned up at the station completely on its own. Emperors are rare at Rothera, so we think it was lost…

Olivia

…stop it. An emperor penguin?

Connor

It stayed for about a week. We weren't allowed near it, so the whole station it from a distance, like proud parents.

Olivia

I take back everything I said about penguins. And when did the sun finally come back?

Connor

In July, and there's a little ceremony for it called sun up. We stood outside with hot drinks while someone read a poem, and then we raised the flag. The sun only showed above the mountains for a short time, but people cheered as if England had just scored.

Olivia

And then the planes came back in October.

Connor

And the planes brought the freshies.

Olivia

The what?

Connor

Fresh fruit and vegetables, which we hadn't seen for months because we'd been living on frozen and tinned food. When the first boxes of apples came off the plane, people were holding them up to their noses and just smelling them.

Olivia

What did you eat first?

Connor

A tomato, like an apple, standing in the corridor.

Olivia

And coming home in the spring. Was that hard?

Connor

Harder than going. On my first day back I walked into a big supermarket in Scarborough, and I had to walk straight out again. There was too much noise, and there must have been forty kinds of breakfast cereal.

Olivia

Forty-one, surely.

Connor

It could easily have been forty-one.

Olivia

Would you go back?

Connor

Tomorrow. I've already applied for another season.

Olivia

Seriously? After the darkness and the frozen boat?

Connor

Probably because of them. It's the only place I've ever been where every single person around you matters, and you feel it every day.

Olivia

Okay, quick-fire before you go. One detail you'll never forget.

Connor

The Weddell seals singing under the water. Pure science fiction.

Olivia

Mine is the potato on a stick. That poor station leader.

Connor

She loves that spoon.

Olivia

Okay, listeners, imagine yourselves down there. Could you spend a winter at the bottom of the world with forty-one people and no easy way out? And what would you make for your midwinter present? We read every comment, so go ahead.

Connor

Just please don't say a spoon.

Olivia

You can download our whole chat, word list included, as a PDF. It's free, and it's just underneath this video. Connor, this was brilliant. Thank you.

Connor

Cheers, Olivia. Mind how you go, everyone.

Olivia

And if you'd like more conversations like this one, subscribe to Aprendos English. See you soon!

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