Forces of Nature

On Sunday night we were forecast a fairly impressive storm. The barometer’s pressure dropped to 905 hPa in a couple of hours which is the lowest I think I have ever seen it (it normally hovers around 1000hPa). This meant we were in for a blow and the forecast was for 50knots of wind in the cove. That is ridiculous, even on the worst days I have seen here so far it has only ever been forecast up to 35kts in the cove. Keiron said that in four years of doing the job he had never seen a forecast like that. 

I woke up around 0500 to the wind whistling, wondering why my room felt a little chillier than normal. When I got up at 0730 I discovered that it was because the wind was in an odd direction and so strong it had forced snow through the very small opening in my window.  I had to clear my desk and floor of a small, rapidly melting drift. That was a wake up call. We had breakfast and the morning meeting to the background noise of howling, and then we all went and battened down the hatches. Paula and I doubled up the lines on the jet boats and ensured the jetboat trailers were secured. I discovered when I went to check on the fuel dump that it was almost impossible to work without snow goggles. This is summer and yet Erny managed to ski down to the boatshed in the afternoon and we had to fight to get anywhere in thigh deep drifts of snow pushing against 50kts of wind. Most of the time I just went backwards. On Tuesday we also discovered that there had been two small avalanches on the track. Doing my last rounds was fun I can tell you. I had to take a shovel to be able to open most of the doors. It really was a good experience for those of us new to winter, as to what it can be like. 

Snowstorm

The next day we had the Pharos in. She (and every other ship in the area) had been hiding for cover. We heard that the rat team had had to dig people out of their tents in the morning just so they could get some food. We spent most of the day clearing up and trying to get rid of snow so as to be ready for last call on Wednesday. I loved walking to the boatshed and spying where the Furries were lying by the little pillars of steam coming out of the snow. They lay there with all their flips tucked up, keeping them warm and looking extremely sweet.

Traditionally Last Call for BAS stations means the end of the summer season at all the bases. The last of the summer crew have gone, it is only the winterers left and operations shut down to their more modest winter levels. At KEP of course things are slightly different. We will continue to have ships come in throughout the winter: Fishing vessels, ‘reefers’, the Pharos and possibly some other visitors. This means that Last Call does not have the same ring to it for us as it would at Halley where the onset of winter means the sun starts to depart and they descend into several months of darkness. However the words ‘Last Call’ do send a slight frisson down one’s spine. 

Last Call went very well, the weather was much, much kinder than at First Call and we had far less to do so really it was only those of us who were JCB drivers who were needed. In the middle of all of that I took people out to the Pharos so they could go home with her when she goes. Four of the people I took out were Hugh, Derren, Gemma and Thomas. They have been a fixture of my time at KEP so far and it will be odd without them. We will miss them all. While taking them out we brought Steve, the Fisheries Officer, back to KEP for a couple of weeks. While on our way back to the base I noticed a bit of wood in the water and directed Hazel, who was driving at the time, over to it. It turned out to be a huge, heavy, waterladen piece of one of the jetties which had been wrenched off during the storm. With a great deal of effort Steve and I managed to haul it on board to find that it was longer than the Jetboats are wide (about 3m). We brought it back on shore so that it would not do any damage to any vessel inadvertently hitting it. 

Dinner on Wednesday was the first that we eight have had alone as the wintering team. It felt  odd to think that other than the GOs, once the builders have gone, those were the only faces we will have on base for the winter. Luckily we are a fine team that gets on, so it also felt good. There is some good banter bandied around and there are of course one or two little differences but nothing that isn’t overcome. As a small base we have a much more ‘family’ feel than at one of the bigger ones such as Rothera, which I like and we all try our best to get on. It did dawn on all of us though at that dinner and it was interesting to see it dawn on each person,  as one by one we came to the same conclusion and you could see it on everyone’s faces. We soon got over it though and enjoyed a good laugh together watching ‘The Guard’, a rather dark comedy about an Irish policeman. Rather good actually. 

Thursday saw us heading round to Carlita again to pick up Andy and Jen who have been in the field doing monitoring for the rat project and were coming back to base for a while. The trip round there is so normal now that sometimes the beauty of the place can leap out at you and take your breath away. It was the first time I had seen the island carpeted in snow and it was awe inspiring. 

On Friday Hazel and I took the GOs, Steve and Sue to a New Zealand fishing vessel: The ‘San Aspiring’ for their inspection. I was very pleased with myself because I unfortunately got kelped up to such an extent that I couldn’t use my starboard bucket. This meant that I had to hold the launch against the side of the vessel using only one engine which is bloody tricky. I managed it though, so I’m not sure that anyone knew there was anything wrong. I felt rather pleased with myself!

While still pleased with myself over pinning the jetboat with one engine, I was less pleased on Saturday morning to be told half way through my breakfast that we needed to move the boats out of the boat shed so that a helicopter could go in. It would normally not be a problem but Luna is sitting on tyres on the boatshed floor which means that it was a bit of a palaver. Everyone was rather annoyed that we hadn’t been informed that the boat shed would be needed. I then discovered that they will actually need to use it 8 to 10 times more. Anyway, my point of view is that as long as it doesn’t affect our maintenance, we get notice and they understand that we may need it in an emergency; this is a small sub Antarctic island and we should all help each other.

Chopper in the Boatshed

To get away from the annoyance bubbling over in the base during Saturday I went over to Penguin river and saw two King Penguin Chicks. They are big, brown, fluffy and very beautiful (in the way only ugly things can be). I very much enjoyed my day and my weekend turned into a very enjoyable one also when I climbed Brown Mountain with Hazel (doc) and Mickey (one of the builders) this morning. It was incredibly beautiful and a really lovely couple of hours, ending with a beer on the verandah in the sun. What more could anyone want? 

King Penguin chicks

Greene Peninsula from Brown Mountain

I want to warn everyone that my blog for next week might be a little late; I am off on holiday this week and probably won’t get back till next Monday so I will have to write it then. Till then. Have a good week and

Happy (belated) St Patrick’s Day