Hacking the Antarctic

Technology is a big part of modern scientific exploration, as one IT expert found out when he embarked on the adventure of a lifetime.

Carles Pina i Estany is not what comes to mind when you picture your typical Polar explorer. A native from sunny Barcelona, he works as a Software Engineer at Mendeley — a London-based technology company owned by science publishers Elsevier — and before this year, he had never even slept aboard a ship. Nevertheless, when the invitation came for him to embark on a 3-month expedition around the Antarctic, he jumped at the chance.

It all happened rather quickly; his partner Jen Thomas — who had previously worked with the British Antarctic Survey — was engaged as Data Manager for a research trip led by the newly created Swiss Polar Institute which was sponsored by the billionaire adventurer Frederik Paulsen.

Having an IT person on board (in addition to the two maintenance and electronics engineers) was essential and so Carles found himself alongside Jen on board the Akademik Tryoshnikov research vessel undertaking an ambitious Antarctic loop via Cape Town in South Africa, Hobart in Tasmania and Punta Arenas in Chile.

This was about the time when things started to go wrong, as he recalls. They had bad weather, the food was poor, and the telecommunications setup didn’t work properly. And while some…