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At the end of November, the Ivan Papanin arrived in Cape Town for a last stop-over before leaving for Antarctica. The ice-class cargo ship filled up on fuel and food supplies for the crew and loaded the last containers full of frozen goods, fresh fruits and vegetables, gas for the vehicles at Utsteinen, wood and other small elements of use on the building site. The Ivan Papanin left South Africa on 1 December.

Another day in Utsteinen, another day of work. Greeted by the sunlight early in the morning, the working men climb out of their tents as early as 6 am.

Scheduled over 4.5 months, the BELARE 2007-2008 expedition aims to build the Princess Elisabeth Station's outer shell and set up the seven remaining wind turbines.

The building team has been working away securing the anchoring points of the station and making headway on constructing the garage. Alain Hubert and a few other team members have retrieved some useful material from the abandoned Japanese station, Asuka. The Ivan papanin should arrive at Breid Bay in less than a month.

With a work schedule ranging from 7 am to noon and 1 pm to 7 pm, work is progressing at a fine pace in Antarctica. Sunday, however, is a day for relaxation, laundry and travel.

Four new team members have reached Utsteinen Base Camp: Gaëlle, Toto, Daniel and Francis. Twenty-four people are now on site, bringing the team to a fully operational number to complete the first phase of the expedition.

On October 15th, the new BELARE (Belgian Antarctic Expedition) team gathered in Brussels for an informative meeting at the Belgian Military Hospital. BELARE 2007-2008 will build the new Belgian research station in Antarctica: Princess Elisabeth Antarctica.

In our last report, it was mentioned that all the containers had been recovered from Breid Bay and that the camp site was slowly filling up with equipment. The building team is preparing the Utsteinen Ridge for the station's anchoring points and making progress on constructing the wind turbines.

A first report was received from Alain Hubert and the building team in Antarctica. Twenty-one people are now on site, working away on the wind turbines and getting started on the station's anchoring points.

The moment has finally come for all to say farewell to the Belgian polar station. The Ivan Papanin, a Russian ice class cargo ship, left the port of Antwerp on November 6th, 2 pm.