Weather!

When you ask someone here about what the weather is doing today the only answer possible is: “changing”. The weather can change from hour to hour and not just gradually, it can change from blowing a hooly and stinging rain to glorious sunshine in the space of about 5 minutes, it is incredible. We have had our fair share of weather this week I can tell you.

Early Monday morning Paula took Daniel, Sue and Keiron out to the Pharos to be taken to Prion Island for the annual survey of Wandering Albatross nests. Prion Island is up in the Bay of Isles and is one of the few places where Wandering Albatross nest. I was incredibly jealous of them. I managed to see Wanderers from the Pharos when we came down from the Falklands but to be able to see them and their chicks close up, that would be special. The three of them were away for 24 hours and returned on Tuesday. Apparently they did the survey as quickly as possible and then just spent their last hour on the island watching and photographing.

Back on base, our Monday (theoretically a bank holiday) started with Paula and me working to get Luna up and running after being on tyres for a couple of weeks. We had to swap her onto the trailer which involved finding more tyres, lifting Alert off the trailer (with the 2 tonne winch in the boatshed), moving and settling her onto the new tyres, lifting Luna and then moving her onto the trailer. All of that sounds easy but when it is just the two of you and you need to drive the trailer out from under the boat, lift her and hold her square and steady all at once, it can be a little tricky. We managed it and then started the real work of trying to get the throttle right, trying to loosen the steering (which had seized) and trying to get the other (supposedly working) engine started. To cut a long story short,  we arrived at the boatshed expecting an easy morning of work fixing one thing and found ourselves working till late fixing three things so that we were ready to head off on an extended boating trip to St Andrews Bay to the south on Tuesday.

St Andrews Bay holds the biggest King Penguin colony in the world. When you see a photo of thousands of Kings on rocky shores, that is St Andrews. It is an iconic place and we all want to get there eventually. It is part of our extended boating limits because there is a possibility that one day (hopefully never) we might have to do a SAR (Search And Rescue operation) there so we need to do at least one trip to it a year, preferably once every 6 months. In addition to going there for local knowledge gathering (for me, Paula has been there before), we were going to drop GO Jo and Paula there for their holiday. Normally to get there one is dropped off at Sorling, spend the night there and then start early next morning on the 7 hour walk across the Barff peninsula to get there. By dropping them off they would only have to walk one way and we would be able to drop both emergency supplies and small amounts of luxuries (tins of tomatoes etc) for people going there the normal route. This is why we were working like hell to get ready to go on Tuesday. At 1800 we discovered that Luna’s engine, that we had finally fixed the linkages on, was revving too high in neutral so instead of working through the night we just swapped the boats over again. This time it was much easier because there were about 5 of us to do it.

The one light relief we had all day was watching the Tall Ship Barque Europa come into the bay. It was a glorious sight and both Paula and I, covered in oil and cursing the engines, looked at each other asking ourselves what we were doing tinkering with engines when both of our hearts lay with sail. It was lovely to have a ship anchored in the cove and to not have the constant noise of the engines rumble over the peace of the bay.

We were kindly invited aboard for a BBQ. It was quite an odd sight to see flames on a wooden ship from the shore but the food was incredible. Absolutely delicious and the only reason I didn’t have a fifth helping was because my plate was taken away while I wasn’t looking. They are on a 7 week cruise from Punta Arenas, down to the Antarctic Peninsula, back up to South Georgia, out to Tristan da Cunha and then ending in Cape Town. Her fuel tanks don’t have the capacity to get them to Cape Town so they are forced to sail, which I think is exactly right; on a Tall Ship one should only use the engines when absolutely necessary, otherwise what is the point of being on such a vessel?

The Barque Europa

The next day, when we were hoping to go to St Andrews,  the wind had picked up to 40kts and we weren’t going anywhere. It was a bit of a disappointment for everyone, especially Jo and Paula, but we have kept all the necessary kit together and we hope to go next week. One of the rat project helicopters came into the boatshed on Tuesday for its 100 hour service which meant that I was able to catch up with some paperwork in the office without feeling guilty about not doing maintenance. It was quite nice actually.

Getting the helo into the boat shed

The only thing I did do was finish Alert’s elephant trunks (part of an engine). When I had finished Paula complimented me on them saying that they looked like the work of a nine year old. I took it as a compliment because I thought they looked like the work of a blind frog attempting arts and crafts. Hopefully they won’t leak. We just need to test them now.

Elephant trunk

On Wednesday I was woken by my windows rattling. When I looked out, instead of land, all I could see was white spume flighting across the top of the broken angry sea which was being whipped into a tortuous frenzy by the hurricane force winds. Our anemometers read 64kts (a hurricane) but we had a ship nearby whose anemometers only read up to 74kts but the needle was straining to go higher. It was quite incredible. The wind was coming from behind Hodges (the prevailing direction) which normally means we don’t get many waves because the fetch is too short to allow them to build. However on Wednesday waves of between 0.5m to 1m were being created in the space of less than half a mile. It was an incredible display of Aeolian power. I was very glad not to be out at sea when we were sitting at breakfast and suddenly the building shook from a particularly forceful gust. We all stayed inside for most of the day, venturing out only when we had to and trying to think heavy thoughts when we did, to anchor us to the ground. While working in the boatshed we cowered and looked at the ceiling every time a particularly forceful gust prised its fingers into the cracks and tested the fastenings with a heave.

That would be a hurricane

Clouds 1

For the rest of the week we have been having pretty strong winds, nothing quite that bad but pretty impressive all the same. Even when it was calmer at ground level the minute one lifted one’s eyes to the heavens, the turmoil became apparent. The cloud formations were extraordinary and changing so rapidly that you could almost see the wind flexing its muscles. Even when the wind’s strength reduced the cloud shapes created were incredible and so beautiful.

Clouds 2

There is sometimes a certain unfortunate tendency to get slightly complacent here. Maybe not with the wildlife but sometimes we think that we have conquered nature. We use the lake for power, we ride the waves in our powerful boats, cutting through waves that centuries ago would have caused problems; we can deal with anything that could happen. Then a day like Wednesday comes around and when you sit and watch and think about what is actually happening I, for one, begin to feel very small again and glad that I am safe on land when nature decides to give a lesson in humility.