A Slightly More Eventful Week

After our uneventful last week this week turned out to be slightly more full. As I mentioned,  it was my birthday on the 13^th.  It was a great day. I worked most of the day, knocking off early to do gymnastic ring exercises with Hazel, Kalinka (a government scientist who was here observing the effect of rat baiting on the island’s avian population) and one of the rat team air mechs, Mark. After that I returned to Everson to find the kitchen a hive of activity. It turned out that everyone had been working very hard to make my dinner. It was a very special occasion. We had roast beef and all the trimmings then they produced a very large and delicious carrot cake. It was a triumph, especially since we only have frozen and tinned carrots on base at the moment. It was a really nice evening and I very much appreciated all the effort that everyone put in. It was apparently Joe (sparky)’s first ever attempt at decorating a cake and it went spectacularly well.

The rest of the week continued in much the same way as normal. The real excitement happened at 0500 on Thursday. The base was roused by the fire alarm being set off. There was a muster and all were informed that the base had been issued a tsunami warning. A 6.6 magnitude earthquake had occurred to the south east of the South Sandwich Islands and since that is not far away at all there was a warning issued and the base evacuated. 

There is a lot of tectonic activity in the area around here. There is also a thought that South Georgia may be its own tectonic plate which would be amazingly cool. Because of the possibility of a tsunami we have a tsunami shelter on the top of the hill by Gull Lake. There is stashed a cache of food, medical equipment, tents, sleeping bags etc to last the summer complement of the base (up to 40 people can be on the island at one time in the summer months) for enough time for a ship to come and relieve us if the base is wiped out. We take the threat seriously but there is very little chance of anything actually happening. However it did mean that the base members (including those of the rat team who were here) spent a couple of hours before sunrise up a hill above Hope Point. The idea is that we get to high ground with all the kit that we would need for a day walk and then if the base is wiped out we would make our way round to the tsunami shelter once the waters had receded. Before anyone starts thinking that is a real danger you have to remember that there are whaling stations dotted all around the island, at sea level, which have survived intact for 100 years or more.

As if to make up for the disruption she had caused, Mother Nature has been very kind for the rest of the week. On Saturday it was an incredibly beautiful day. Rod, Hazel and I walked across Penguin River and the Hestesletten to climb Osmic Hill.

Hestesletten

Crossing Hestesletten

It is not the most pleasant hill to walk up, the beginning was a mess of tussocky uneven steps when then led onto scree covered in just a thin enough layer of snow to make it very slippy. Once we had got over that, all we had to deal with were some very nice gentle slopes covered in snow so lit up by the sun that it looked like we were walking on diamonds. While Osmic is not a high hill, once we made the top (after several false peaks) we could see all the way down Morraine Fjord and all the way across to the base. It felt as if we were on top of the world. Crunching our way back down the slopes we had the sun on our backs and it felt warm. However as soon as we had waded Penguin River again (with slightly wet feet on all fronts) we were out of the sun and soon found that the salt water on our trousers had frozen. It was quite spectacular. 

 

Morraine Fjord

Hamburg Lake

 That evening Erny made curry for his Saturday cook and the base decided that it was time for a Fancy Dress night. We had everyone turn up, from Mother Teresa to Gandhi,  with everything in between. It was very colourful. 

On Sunday the weather was not quite as beautiful  but Jo (GO), Hazel and I still decided to walk over to Maiviken and after a cup of tea at the hut there we headed down to the beach to search for a cave other than the sealers cave. It was incredibly slippy since it was cold enough for the spray to have frozen on the rocks, making our traverse across them treacherous. 

We did find a tunnel though which was very impressive. It is amazing what a little change in light does to somewhere you know quite well. We all know the route to Maiviken very well but the snow which is now on the ground had transformed it into a completely different place. As we crested Deadman’s Pass there was an apocalyptic cloud hanging over West Cumberland Bay, making the whole world grey. The sun came through to light up the diamonds in the snow again and we also saw a corona - a ring around the sun that is only seen at high latitudes. It is created by ice crystals in the atmosphere which refract the light to create a halo. It really was beautiful. 

Cumberland Bay

 

The Apocalypse

The enjoyment of the evening was diminished slightly by having a power down that was so severe that they couldn’t start the hydro up from our end which meant that the generators had to go on. We lost the server and everyone had to spend a while wandering around in the dark trying to make things work again. However it was only for a short time and I spent a very enjoyable evening eating far too much pasta and watching Dirty Dancing. I always love films that leave you smiling. 

So I will leave you now dreaming of coronas and diamonds dancing in the snow.   

Corona