Christmas Week

Usually Christmas week is spent in glorious lassitude at home, eating far too much in front of a crackling fire, playing with my 10 year old brother, listening in turn to carols and ‘A Rat Pack Christmas’, watching Christmas television and revelling in family and friends. But this year I was 7000 miles away from hearth and home, with people with whom I am only just beginning to be friends, in the middle of summer (although you couldn’t really tell the difference between South Georgian summer and British winter). However, as much as I missed home, it was a good week and we all made it as good as we possibly could for each other.

The week started very luckily without a bang. When the army left South Georgia in 2001 they swept the area around the base for unexploded ordnance. However they couldn’t sweep the entire island and quite often we find some unexploded ordnance from their exercises. Luckily it is becoming rarer and rarer but it still does happen. We found 3 live blank bullets yesterday for example, and on Christmas Eve there was another occurrence; the builders have a fire and gravel pit where they can burn what they need to and take gravel for cement etc. Pecker (Dave Peck the foreman) was wandering around the fire pit when he saw something sticking out of the ground. Thinking it was something that his builders had left by accident, he pulled it out to find that it was in fact an anti tank round with the explosive head still intact. He was bloody lucky and it reminded us again that if we see something odd we mark it and leave it (we all carry around a bit of orange tape to mark ordnance with). We will have to call in EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) to deal with it. We think that they will blow it in situ since it is probably too dangerous to disarm and move. It was an interesting beginning to the week.

I went, with others, in the afternoon to pick up Katie and Ali from the Barf peninsula where they had been on holiday. Unfortunately one of the engines on the RIB conked out and we had to change boats before we left the cove. I will admit that I simply left it till after Boxing Day to try and fix. Not the best start to the holiday though, knowing I would have to fix it.

In the evening, once it had got dark enough, we all walked over to the church. It was incredibly beautiful. The church was lit from inside with candles and the light fell in pools from the windows. Behind, the outline of the pitch black mountains was picked out in snow, glinting silver when the moon crept out from clouds that looked like they were painted on navy washed silk.   

Christmas Service

The service was very nice. The Doc, John conducted it and we all sang our hearts out, attempting to hear time and pitch from the slightly tinny iPod in the corner and in the end deciding that we would go at our own speed. I was asked to read a passage and half way through the service we were very civilised and stopped for mulled wine from thermoses and mince pies. We walked back in the darkness avoiding the seals by spotting the darker lumps on the track and listening for growls. The stars slowly winked out at us and I was reminded yet again of the alien nature of the skies and how perspective is incredibly important to us: I mentioned to Shane (one of the builders who lives in the Falklands) that Orion was upside down and he told me that it was just the right way up thank you very much. Looking at these skies makes me think of the bravery of ancient sailors who would leave their homes and sail into the unknown until the very skies had changed. How terrifying would that be? It also reminds me of the lines in Hardy’s poem ‘Drummer Hodge’:

Yet portion of that unknown plain
Will Hodge for ever be;
His homely Northern breast and brain
Grow to some Southern tree,
And strange-eyed constellations reign
His stars eternally.

Christmas morning broke to the sound of furries quarrelling under my window. I got up and opened the stocking that had found its way into my P box when I was packing. It was a very poignant half hour sitting enjoying my stocking while thinking about the family all opening theirs sitting on Mum and Az’s bed all together, with Percy (the dog) sitting patiently listening to it all. The rest of the day for me was spent in between the kitchen and the bar reading the books I had been given. Sarah (Manager of the Museum and GO Pat’s wife) had very thoughtfully prepared a bag of token presents for everyone and we all sat together at 1130 opening them. It was extremely kind of her.

We all had dinner together in the dining room and Sue, who was managing the whole thing, surpassed herself. Things only really came together, literally, in the last half hour. We had food cooking in three different ovens in three different buildings that was all brought together and served in Everson House dining room. We had reindeer and mushroom terrine, then the roast chickens from HMS Edinburgh with all the trimmings (and some that I found slightly odd such as Yorkshire puddings and cauliflower cheese), then Christmas puddings (two of which again had found their way into my P box - you’ve got to love mothers) and trifle. It was lovely, we all had a great time chatting, pulling crackers, playing charades and generally doing silly Christmas things.

Christmas Dinner

I won’t say that it was easy to be away from home at Christmas but, unlike at some of the bigger bases, we are a sort of family here and we all worked very hard to make it come together and feel as homely and Christmassy as we could and it worked, through a stint of hard graft, it worked.

Boxing Day, the weather clagged in and snow was the order of the day. Most of us stayed inside doing nothing but watching films and reading. We played a couple of board games and generally waxed lazy for a day. The next day however was back to work and for me that meant fixing a reluctant engine. As usual, while trying to fix one thing I came across two other problems that needed urgent attention and I didn’t even get to start the real work of figuring out what was wrong with the engine (that will have to wait for Monday) but I was very proud of myself that with little help I managed to make a new gasket, rescue bits from a scrap engine (we didn’t even have some of the parts that I needed which has made the whole thing trickier) and put the engine back together so at least it wasn’t in worse shape than when I started.

I had to leave the engine till Monday because on Friday I was asked by Daniel to come and learn how to catch, handle and weigh penguins so I can take over penguin weighing for him when he is at sea doing the groundfish survey with Sue. Ali, Daniel and I walked over to Maiviken and had our breath taken away by the sight of the HUGE tabular icebergs which had been pushed into the bay by the unusual easterlies we have been having.

Huge berg

Bergs in the bay

Using the VHF receiver we discovered that one of the female seals they had tagged had returned so we first had to catch her and recover the tag. It was a team effort to catch her and then put her in ‘the stocks’ so that she wouldn’t be hurt while Daniel took the tag off. I had to chase away any male that thought that was a good opportunity to claim her as his, which can be a dangerous time for the beakers (scientists) and seal alike. When I held her I could feel the silkiness of her fur that was so nearly the downfall of her species. I can see exactly why they were persecuted to near extinction; to have a coat of that fur would ensure you were warm and snug forever.

Once we had released her and got our breath back we went down to the Gentoo colony to complete the real business of the day.

Gentoo Creche

When it comes to it we will have to weigh 50 chicks which by that time will have moulted into their adult plumage and be staying in crèches waiting for their genes to tell them to go to sea. Imagine playing rugby and chasing a grubber kick along the ground. That is the closest thing to catching a penguin I can think of. They dodge and duck like Johnny Wilkinson and once you have caught one (by literally throwing yourself on top of it in the mud) you have to take great care that they don’t do you or themselves damage. Luckily when I mishandled mine and it got a peck to my jaw I was shielded by my buff but I was still a little bruised. After a triumphant token weighing by both Daniel and me we went and had lunch in the middle of the beach at Tortula. As we walked we got a lesson in how to handle and sex pups. I can see that one’s trousers could get a good mauling if one isn’t careful.

We found a beautiful Blonde pup with a lot of spirit. It was a distinctly good day and yet again I found myself in awe that I actually get paid to sit on a beach in the sunshine watching pups playing and males fighting to a background of some of the most beautiful scenery in the world emphasised by the bergs in the foreground.

Blondie pup on the beach



Blondie pup playing

Saturday was spent returning to Maiviken for a jolly with Rod, Joe, Keiron and Sue and then in the evening the builders put on a ‘disco in Disco’ to celebrate New Year and the fact that they have nearly finished in Discovery (Disco) house.

The next time I write this blog it will be the start of a new year. Whatever happens in 2013 I am sure that I will be kept on my toes not only by the wildlife but by the job and I am looking forward to every minute of it.

Happy New Year

Catch you on the flip side.



Gifts In Kind

As I mentioned last week, I spent all of Monday ferrying sailors from HMS Edinburgh to shore and back again, so they could spend a couple of hours on South Georgia. It was a very interesting experience. We started at 0800 by taking Pat (GO) out to clear them and then at 0900 Alastair (the ex seal guy) and I in our respective harbour launches and with our respective crews started the process of ferrying them 8 at a time. We are only allowed to have 10 people on board while ferrying in the cove which constricted us a little but in the end was fine. We swapped crews every couple of hours or so but Ali and I stayed as the coxes all day. As well as us ferrying the sailors ashore there was a lot of other activity. The government had been lent the use of their Lynx helicopter to take aerial shots of the site of the accident at Stromness that we went to last week. Once that was done they also very kindly ferried 300kg of kit up Brown Mountain so that a couple of German scientists can come in and install a very precise GPS transceiver site. We were all very pleased about this since it meant that we weren’t going to be asked to help carry it up there.

HMS Edinburgh is the last of the Type 42 destroyers around and this is her last voyage. It has been, and will be, one hell of a voyage. She came down the east coast of Africa to Cape Town. From there she came here to South Georgia. Once she finished here she was on her way to the Falklands for Christmas. There she will stay for a month on patrol around the islands, helping outlying communities, conducting a fisheries patrol and generally being a ‘presence’ in the area. Once she has finished that she will make her slow way home through the Caribbean and up to New York where she will sail right into Manhatten (how cool is that, it is one of the things I really want to do). From New York she will sail home and after leave and a few final ceremonial duties (including the ship’s company marching through Edinburgh) she will be decommissioned in June. A fine final voyage for a fine ship. [To reassure anyone who thinks I may be giving away sensitive operational information: I am not, her itinerary can be found in the public domain].



HMS Edinburgh

Of course being on the water all day I was privy to all her radio comms. Her code name was ‘Fortress’ (her insignia is Edinburgh castle), her small seaboat was ‘Red Knight’, her Lynx helicopter was ‘Claymore’ and the airman who went up Brown Mountain with Rod and John to ensure that she was unloaded correctly at the top of the mountain was ‘Hobbit’ (apparently he was rather tall).

To come alongside a ship can be quite an interesting manoeuvre; we were incredibly lucky that it was neither too windy nor choppy. The weather in the morning was horrible, we found ourselves operating at completely reduced visibility in a snow storm for a couple of hours but it slowly cleared to bright sunshine in the evening. We were also lucky in that they had a fixed ladder on their Port quarter (at the rear on the left) which meant that we had a fixed object to hold against rather than a rope pilot ladder which is our usual point of contact. Once alongside you have to hold there for a good time (it always seemed much longer than it actually was) while 8 people got on or off and bags and lifejackets were passed back and forth. This sometimes went fine but sometimes our launches would inch away with us fighting them all the time and you would have to call ‘wait’ and some poor sailor would have to wait holding onto the ladder while we came back underneath them. The ladder wasn’t high at all luckily so it was fine for them to wait. Once they were all on you had to come away without bumping or scraping and head into the cove to drop them off at the wharf where again we were holding off without ropes. It was both mentally and physically exhausting but both Alastair and I had a real sense of achievement of a job well done by the end of it.

The biggest gifts (other than not having to hump 300kg of kit up a hill) that Edinburgh gave us were a copy of the film RED (we had been watching it on Sunday night when it stopped 10 mins from the end so we were very pleased to hear they had a copy) and 15 whole chickens. Now this doesn’t sound much but no base in Antarctica brings in meat on the bone. A study was done and it was found that badly disposed of bones could possibly give avian diseases to any nearby penguin colonies so the importing of meat on the bone was stopped as a precaution. However a whole roast chicken does taste so much better. Therefore when it was hinted to them that Christmas wasn’t the same without a whole roast bird, they very kindly produced 15 whole chickens which are currently sitting in our freezer waiting for the big day. (And don't worry, the bones will be disposed of very responsibly.)

The final job we did for them was in the evening after we had shut down and were just sitting down to a well earned drink. We got a radio call that they had a ‘small issue’; they were having a BBQ on the flight deck and had dropped a fuel canister overboard by accident and couldn’t collect it themselves since their seaboat had just broken. Sue, Pat and I headed out and collected it for them and in return were given the most delicious kudu (a kind of South African antelope) burgers which we ate in the sun while dawdling back to base. It was a great end to a good day.

The next day we spent the evening ‘decking the halls’ (or just the bar) with Christmas decorations. We have a few Scrooges on base (at least they like to think of themselves as Scrooges) but once Sue and I had got stuck in with the decorations and some mince pies and mulled wine found their way onto the bar it was funny how many of the Scrooges got stuck in and a lot of fun was had all round. In order to ‘deck’ the cove for Christmas Nature has blown in a HUGE iceberg which grounded on Wednesday and is now beginning very slowly to crumble. It is very impressive and providing a nice background to our daily lives.



Iceberg



The rest of the week for me was spent in the depths of Pipit’s (one of the two harbour launches) engine bay doing all the services listed on AMOS. I was on Earlies on Wednesday and was meant to start cooking at around 1730 but at 1700 I found myself still standing in the engine bay with two engines U/S (unserviceable because they had no filters in them and me up to my elbows in oil cursing. I very nearly had a sense of humour failure then the Ellie seal that had been asleep next to the boats all day woke up with a snort and a very surprised look on his face as I passed him with a bucket of oil and I realised how ridiculous it all was and then wasted yet more time by giggling to myself so hard that I had to sit down. 

Poor Daniel managed to really damage his ankle while seal tagging and has been hobbling everywhere for a couple of days. This meant that someone had to do his seal round on Saturday; during the summer he has to go to Maiviken every other day and take photos of the beaches to count the numbers of male, female and pup Furries, then collect 10 scat every week and sift through it to see what they are eating. Rod, Andy Black and I went over and did his seal round for him.



Crowded beach



  Andy also put a listening device next to a couple of White Chinned Petrel nests to get a base line of numbers to use when ascertaining relative population increase after the rat eradication project. It was very interesting to see what he does and it was a lovely day out. My favourite part of the day was sitting above one beach and seeing a female Furry come out of the water. As soon as her head broke the surface she was calling and calling. This calling became slightly frantic after a while and I began to get worried (not as worried as the mother) until her head snapped to the right and she stood very still, obviously straining to hear something. Out of the Tussock came flapping a small pup with its oh so very overlarge flippers and the joy of the reunion was so touching that it brought a tear to my eye. How on earth they could recognise each other’s calls amongst the cacophony on the beach I will never understand but I was very glad that they did. On our return we stopped for a very short time by the Gentoo colony and found that the chicks are getting big and are beginning to crèche. They now look just like furry Pterodactyls.



Gentoo creche



Next week will be a quiet one we hope. There will be a church service for us and a cruise ship tomorrow evening after I have collected Katie and Alastair from the Barff peninsula where they have been having a holiday of 4 days. On Christmas Day itself Sue has taken on the job of Chief Chef in charge of several Kitchen Slaves. We will hopefully have 22 people for Christmas supper and we will be enjoying Chicken on the bone and the two Christmas puddings that my wonderful mother put in my P box that left England at the beginning of October! The only thing lacking will be the joy of Christmas with the family and I will be thinking of them all day, however it will be a cracking Christmas here and I hope that you all enjoy yourselves as much as we intend to.

Merry Christmas!!

A Day in the Life

I am not sure that I have yet described in my posts the actual day to day running of the station and what we do. Therefore I will run you through an average day. 

I wake up at 0730, roll out of bed and open my curtains to see what the day will present me with in terms of weather. I am lucky in that my pittroom is on the seaward side so my view is ever changing. I am also very lucky in that I have not had to share with anyone yet so I can happily do my teeth standing at the window looking out at the seals and birds. Watching a Tern having to fight to stay in position long enough to grab a bite to eat is a good indication of what I will be doing when I step outside.

When dressed I go through the bar to the dining room where all our meals are taken. There we all have breakfast, generally in drips and drabs. Work officially starts at 0830 so I sit around reading whichever of the magazines I haven’t yet read cover to cover (there is a limited amount, we get ‘new’ - about 6 months out of date - magazines at the beginning of the month) with my large enamel mug (“Keep calm and carry on” of course) till 0825 when I head off to the office. Every Monday we have a Base Meeting where all base members and a representative of every group on the island (except the builders) meet to hear what will be happening that week. It is at this meeting that the GOs (Government Officers) tell us what shipping will be coming in, our BC (Base Commander) gives us information, the scientists tell us whether they need any help (tagging, counting pups/chicks etc) and I warn people about the boating that needs to be done, because they will have to act as crew. When that is over we all saunter off to our respective jobs.

The offices and labs are in the next building along, the Cook Labs (we live in Everson house). In the office I check emails and open up a program called AMOS which rules my life. It tells me what maintenance I need to do and it is how I report all that I am doing. It is meant to make life simpler but the swearing I do at it on a daily basis proves its attitude toward logic and reason.

After dealing with paperwork I head down to the Boathouse. Once there I gather the tools and nerve I need to start tackling the maintenance jobs dictated by AMOS. On a Monday I do the weekly checks to make sure that all the boats are still running at optimum. Any problems that I pick up on those checks get added to my list of maintenance. At 1030 we have Smoko when, unless in the middle of something, we all congregate back up at the Everson House dining room for tea/coffee. We also all pitch in to help with the crossword and the three general knowledge questions in ‘Newslink,’ the 8 pages of news summary we get printed off every day. At 1100 we all head back out to work till 1300 which is lunch. We all get our own lunch and usually I make it up out of the leftovers from the night before. Work starts again (officially, many people start before then) at 1400.

Whenever there is boating I have to get people to sign up as crew/ cox for as many boats as are needed. If we are putting a team of visiting scientists into the field we need to take a Launch (to carry all them and all their kit) and a RIB to land them at the site. The launch can’t do the beach landings because the pebbles get sucked into the impellors and break them. This means that three people, other than me, have to come down to the wharf ½ an hour before we leave, to prepare. The launch cox does the prestart checks on either Pipit or Prion and the RIB cox does the prestart checks on either Alert or Luna. I then get the JCB (digger) out and tow the RIB out of the boathouse and into the water to launch her. 

The View from my Office Window

 While out on the water we have to stay in communication with the base so every 15mins we do an ‘ops normal’ (operations normal) giving location and intentions. Once we have landed the science team we return and ‘put the boats to bed’. A trip to do that can take an hour or the whole afternoon depending on the field site. 

At 1700 the work day ends, although I can find myself working longer trying to put an engine back together, or Daniel can work till midnight sifting a seal poo for otoliths (fish ear bones). At 1700 people start going off for a run, going to the gym, working in the carpentry shop, going for a walk or any of the number of things that we can do in our free time.

The person on ’earlies’ will often have stopped work at 1600 to start cooking supper. When you are on earlies you have to get up at 0600 and start cooking bread for the day. You then have to do the rounds to make sure that nothing has burnt down or happened in the night. You’re also responsible for cooking the evening meal and making sure throughout  the day that there is enough cereal out or that enough cheese has been defrosted (we have to freeze all our cheese), that the kitchen is tidy and the dishwasher put on then emptied. The person on earlies is also responsible that day for the comms. So any comms from boating or field parties etc have to be picked up by the person on earlies. The day after you are on earlies you are on lates and have to do the evening ‘sched’ if there are any field parties. This is a check up call that every party in the field does at 1845 or thereabouts (the times are allocated if there is more than one party out) to ensure they are safe and to hear what their plans are. If the Doc or BC is out in the field they have to sched in at 0900 as well to make sure that nothing has happened on Base that they need to know about. The lates person then has to empty the bins last thing and do the night rounds, closing doors, checking lights are off and making sure everything is safe for the night.

In terms of social events every Wednesday and Sunday night the person on lates gets to choose a film to which everyone on base is invited. I have already described Saturday nights but that is the biggest social occasion on base although any night people can be found in the bar drinking either alcohol or tea and chatting.

A Mixed Week

This week has been rather an odd one. The Pharos arrived on Sunday and ever since then was at the end of the wharf metaphorically hanging over the heads of those who were leaving on Friday. We had the Chief Justice on the island for a familiarisation trip as well;  he came around the base to see what we do and to the bar on Wednesday evening to chat to us.

On Thursday we had an extended boating trip to Stromness so Keiron (GO) could photograph the site of an accident to a cruise ship passenger. We took Pipit and Luna and headed off at the very reasonable time of 0900. It was the most glorious ‘dingle’ day. The sun was shining and the sky was that peculiar blue you get so rarely. We had a glorious run up to Stromness, having to slow down only very slightly for ice at the mouth of Cumberland West Bay. We entered Stromness bay and anchored in 10 m of water only 10m from the shore which was an extremely odd feeling but goes to show how steeply the beaches slope here.

After a cup of thermos coffee and time to check that the anchor was holding we got ready to put Keiron, Andy Black and Rod ashore to go up to the site. The main problem with landing at Stromness is the Furriness of the beach. We had to wait and look for a good spot with no males around. We eventually found a place and put them in. They advanced up the beach in formation with Andy, who had the longest bodger, leading the way. While they went off up the hill to the site of the accident I put Alastair ashore to take some panoramic shots of the whaling station and a shot or two of the blonde Furry male on the beach, and Sue for a walk. I stayed and read on board in the sun. All I could hear was the mewling and calling of the pups and their mothers and then splashing gradually getting nearer and nearer to the boat. I looked over the side and saw a couple of Furries coming and playing around Pipit. The great game was to swim at the highest speed possible straight towards the boat and at the last possible moment to either swerve to one side or to dive underneath. The torrent of bubbles that they left streaming behind them turned their fur silver and reflected the sun to morph them into speeding meteors, melting into the kelp. 

Blondie on the beach

Returning to base we slipped into Leith and then went over to Husvik to see the new huts that have been put in over there. On our way out of the bay we came across one of the yachts that are visiting at the moment. I was so envious of her coming in with full main and foresail set. As we left I noticed a distinctive fold in the rock of the mountain; Keiron reminded me it was the fold that Shackleton recognised Stromness Bay by when he came over the mountains into the valley. I can see why he would have recognised it, it is very distinctive. Leaving the bay we could see small bergy bits floating in the sun and in the distance two huge tabular bergs. I can’t believe that I am actually being paid to work here, it really is mind blowing.  

Iceberg

 

That evening after supper we had a cake with ‘Farewell’ iced on it and then we lit a bonfire for a last hurrah for the chaps that were leaving. It was a lovely evening all sitting around the fire and chatting. There was a big male Fur seal sitting quite close to the fire and he really looked like he was enjoying it. It must have been the first time in his life that he had actually been warm. 

Friday morning broke with some people still rather merry from the night before and others regretting they weren’t. We all came down to the wharf at 0800 to release the Pharos’ lines and see them all off. At one of the anchor points we had a small problem in that a Furry family had taken up residence around it. Alastair and I had to tag team it with him advancing on the male with a bodger while I came behind him and undid the line while he held the male off. We all waved Matt, James and Les off with mixed feelings, Alastair and Katie especially since they were meant to be on that Pharos but have stayed to do some work for the government. For some people seeing Matt and James off was very difficult since KEP will not be the same without them (Les has been here a much shorter time). I had got used to their presence and enjoyed their company and their loss will be felt by everyone. Friday was all in all a very subdued day for everyone with us new people trying to keep out of the way of the ex winterers and the ex winterers trying to get used to the base without their counterparts.

On Saturday I climbed Brown Mountain with Rod to check out a landing site for the Lynx helicopter that is coming down with HMS Edinburgh on Monday. The Lynx will be helping to carry 300kg of kit up to the top for a couple of German scientists who will be setting up a GPS unit. I am not sure I will be walking up another hill with Rod, he is very tall and has a loping stride that caused me to have to run to keep up with him. It was a very nice morning trip though and we were back in time to help decorate the church for Christmas.

It is base tradition that we all go over and help the museum folk to decorate the church for a Christmas Service for us and whichever cruise ships will be in on Christmas day. It was very nice, the Christmas spirit had been lacking slightly on base for my liking and it was wonderful to hear some carols as we worked (I have been playing carols in my room since December 1^st  but they don’t really count). I built the tree out of its box and then decorated it. I did have a moment’s pause when I wondered how the puritan Norwegians who built the church would feel to have it decorated in such a way, but Christmas is Christmas and should be celebrated as much as possible.

Grytviken Church looking festive

After we had finished the church we had mulled wine and mince pies and a BBQ. If you stood close enough to the BBQ the snow that was gently falling melted to rain but that all stopped soon enough and we enjoyed a fine night of standing round a fire chatting again. I am still always amazed at the atavistic feelings a fire can bring up in one. It was a good way to end the week and brought all of us left behind closer I think. It was a pause for us all to catch our breath before next week starts the mania again. Transferring 280 naval sailors from HMS Edinburgh to shore and back again will be quite a long day but I am looking forward to it. Jumping in at the deep end again.

Vivid Contrasts

This is a country of incredibly stark contrasts; from the mountains screaming straight up 500m into the sky directly from the sea, to the weather which has, outside my window, turned from bright summer sunshine to a thick impenetrable snow storm in just 15 minutes. I experienced the contrasts of both terrain and the work expected of us this week as well.

We had field training all of Thursday and Friday to teach those of us who don’t know it some camp craft and navigation, but most importantly to teach us how things are done here. I spent 5 weeks this summer on expedition, camping in terrain and conditions pretty similar to here, high within the Arctic Circle in Norway, so I am fairly au fait with both camp craft and navigation. The terrain on this island, however, I have only just begun to experience. We were very lucky to have James the ex BC (Base Commander) do our field training for us. Before being a BC he was a GA (a field assistant who took scientists out into the field, mainly from Rothera) and he is an accomplished mountaineer, so has a very good idea of what we need to know to be safe in our travels around the area.

We spent the morning learning how to use and maintain both the lightweight stoves we take camping and the old fashioned Primus stoves that are in the huts. There are huts dotted around the Cumberland Bay areas as emergency shelters in case someone gets into difficulty. Technically only the GOs (Government Officers) are meant to stay in them but there is a lot of ‘camping outside the hut’ that gets done for a holiday. Inside these huts are an old fashioned Primus stove and a Tilly lamp. Both of these bits of kit are the main source of heat, light and cooking used by BAS. They are fairly heavy but since most BAS travel is on skidoos that doesn’t matter. The stove is almost exactly the same design that Scott and Shackleton used on their expeditions, a big heavy brass object which burns kerosene and has to be primed using methylated spirits.

Primus

Since Scott’s time BAS have only made a very slight modification and that is an extension of the legs, thereby reducing the production of carbon monoxide, which is possibly the greatest danger one faces down in Antarctica .Luckily on the island bases where we don’t use skidoos we carry the modern lightweight stoves normally used while camping.

Once we had spent the morning learning (or remembering in my case) the maintenance of stoves, and a little bit of navigation, we set off. The start was a deceivingly gentle walk along Bore Valley, halfway up Deadman’s Pass, to two rocks. There I jokingly asked “Are we going that way now?”,  pointing to a sheer and scree ridden climb. Unfortunately the answer was “Yes”. This just went to prove that to get almost anywhere on South Georgia involves going up. Even getting down off a mountain can involve going up over a shoulder from one valley to another. We spent the next 5 hours experiencing South Georgia travel. There are pretty much only 4 different types of terrain here: Scree (sharp, crumbly and omnipresent), snow, tussock (which can hold the delights of falling into an Ellie Wallow or the teeth of a Furry) and bog. We traipsed our way across all of these in the 5 hours we tramped across the island. We actually only did about 10.5km as the snow petrel flies but with the gain and loss of altitude this was in effect greatly increased.

We climbed up the sheer face described above to reach a flatter area with lakes. These were still covered in snow so we had to take care to go round the edge of them rather than fall through the middle of the snow covered ice. We then had to cut steps into a snow field and traverse a slope leading to Boulder Pass. We dropped off this into terrain that can most aptly be described as ‘walking on marshmallow’. I am not sure in the end which was the most draining, the scrabbling up scree with the ground beneath our feet sliding away with every step or the wading through boot stealing bog which sucked at our feet with the tenacity of a bulldog (both with large packs on our backs). We eventually made it to the hut at Harpon on Cumberland West Bay and camped outside the hut there.

We all felt that we had earned our supper that night. For field travel BAS supplies ‘Manfood’ boxes. These can feed a field party of 2 for 10 days. They are still called ‘Manfood’ even though it has now been 13 years since you would also take ‘Dogfood’ boxes into the field with you. BAS is a very traditional organisation! I think I must be one of the few people in the world who actively like dehydrated manfood but then I actively like any type of food when I am hungry. There was a very small amount of drift wood near the hut so we made a small fire and sat around it chatting, passing a hipflask of whiskey and listening to the evening. Perfect. Lying in your tent listening to a South Georgian night is not the silent experience that one might think. Being near a beach there were both Ellies and some Furries around. The Elly males take great pleasure in finding an echo and then producing a deep, bone rattling roar to ring around the hills for minutes at a time (you can see the percussion waves from their roar for a good 3 feet in front of them on the surface of the water). We fell asleep to that and, every so often, to the sound of the Lyell Glacier calving 2km behind us.

Our return journey was much easier (relatively). We had a ‘long slow pull’ over rock, scree and snow up to Echo Pass. This was made far more exciting by the storm force winds that buffeted us as we climbed. I eventually figured out that if I went at an angle to the wind it would push me up exactly as if I were tacking while sailing, thereby using far less energy than fighting it. The only interesting moment was when I was on the edge of the ridge and the wind literally took me off my feet. The descent from the Pass was also slightly ‘gnarly’ with a steep section that just invited ‘bumsliding’ down it (a note to anyone who ‘bumslides’ down a snow slope: sit on your pack; many a coccyx has been damaged by failing to do so). Home and lunch were very welcome when we arrived back.

One rather funny incident occurred after we got home;  James and I were changing fuel drums in the fuel store. We had just removed two empty 220l drums and were putting a full one in place when a gust of wind took one of them, knocked it over and rolled it all the way down the beach, through a Furry harem and past squealing Weaners, with me chasing it as fast as I could. I wasn’t fast enough and had to stand and watch as it was blown off shore. I had to field radio calls from everybody while James and I got dressed in our boat suits and got into the Launch to pick it up. Unfortunately the entire Base all happened to look up out of their windows at that precise moment to see the result of our mistake. Thankfully we had done the drum up so it floated and we were able to pick it up easily but it could have been a slightly embarrassing miniature fuel spill to explain.

The contrast between the different kinds of work we are expected to do fits nicely with the previous story because the day after I had been in the field camping and then chasing after fuel drums, I found myself in the kitchen, with an apron on, cooking a 3 course dinner for 21 people. I have to say that the cooking side of things was the one I was the most apprehensive about before arriving and it is still the duty I enjoy the least but I haven’t given anyone food poisoning – yet. Saturday night is a big event on BAS bases, everyone dresses up a little bit and there is a 3 course dinner. We generally invite the GOs and whichever of the builders (who are currently here refurbishing Discovery House) want to come. (For those who want to know: we had leek and potato soup followed by shepherds pie and Keiron the GO took pity on me and made sticky toffee pudding - generally someone does help out with at least one course).

After the domesticity of Saturday, during which I left the kitchen only once (for ½ an hour to walk round the track to Grytviken, to maintain some sanity), Sunday was different again. At 1000 I was out on the Launch doing my first pick up from a vessel, collecting the Chief Justice of South Georgia who had come down from the Falklands on the RFA (Royal Fleet Auxilary) Gold Rover (getting a person and their luggage on or off a pilot ladder is really much harder than one would think). At 1400 I was out in the RIB following the launch as we went to drop John (the Doc till mid January) and James off in Corral for a holiday and pick up the habitat survey party from Sorling. At 1930 I was out again in the launch dropping Sue off on the Pharos so she could do the monthly plankton trawl. It was very lucky that the Pharos was coming alongside on Monday morning or else I would have been out again at 2330 to pick Sue up again. From bright sunshine when we set off to drop James and John, in 15 minutes the weather had changed to a small blizzard and I can tell you that when motoring at 16kts into the wind and snow any scrap of skin not tightly covered is instantly found and attacked by the wind. To have to take both a helmet with visor and sunglasses on a single trip just brings home the contrasts we live with here everyday.