Traps and that hat

 Since being on holiday over last weekend not much has happened. We have had the whole gamut of South Georgia weather with gales and snow storms one day and painfully beautiful days the next.

The only boating that happened during the week was when I took Nik out to Sooty Bluff to deploy a series of traps to see if he could get more larvae at depth. We put an anchor in at 60m of water (which here is only about 20/30m off the shore) and then every 10m he hooked one of his traps. The trouble with poor Nik's project is that he doesn’t know if the larvae are around at the moment, if they are where they would be and even if they are attracted to light (this last is important since he is using light as ‘bait’ to bring the larvae in). He came into this Post Doc when it was half way through and he is picking up the pieces as well as he can but it is rather tricky.We returned the next day with high hopes but after getting aching arms hauling up the anchor, unfortunately no luck; he caught a rather wonderful shrimp and that was it.

If the main bulk of our boating happens at a weekend it can be infuriating, especially over a bank holiday as we've just had.Very luckily, even though we were expecting boats on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday, in the end they only arrived into the bay on Saturday night so we were able to have a free day on Saturday. I woke earlyish on Saturday to one of the most beautiful days we have had in a long time, if not ever. Hazel was already up and we decided on a fast breakfast and then to head out. We had decided on Friday that we wanted to see somewhere new so we headed up to Echo Pass.

I was on snowshoes and Hazel was on skis. It was a truly glorious day. Every facet of the snow was a diamond glinting a rainbow back up to the flawlessly blue sky and the air was crisp and clean. Actually the air was rather more than crisp, it was really rather chilly, I reckon it was about -8’C which was fine when we were moving but stopping for any time necessitated the putting on of multiple layers.

I thought I might have a slight difficulty keeping up with Hazel on skis but on the flat or uphill I was just as fast as her, and on icy bits faster, which was reassuring. We stopped at Upper Gull Lake for smoko (a chocolate bar) and then carried on round the corner. We had to negotiate the flanks of Orca (a hill) and were in the shade for most of that which made it a little chillier than before but after a bit of sliding on a steepish slope on Hazel's, we crested the pass into the sunshine. We had discovered on our holiday at Maiviken that the other side of the peninsula is in the sun pretty much all day, whereas the base only gets direct sunlight for a few hours a day at the moment. It is amazing the difference actually feeling the sun on your face makes. One feels rejuvenated and in a far more benevolent mood with the world, or at least I do. The maxim of “You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone” isn’t quite right I find; rather it's “You don’t know what you’re missing until it comes back”. I can’t even imagine what seeing the sun for the first time after a winter of complete darkness must feel like, as happens on some of the bases.  

First glimpse over the pass

 

Deadman's in the sun

 From the top of the pass we looked down upon the other bay and the other side of the peninsula. The Neumayer glacier swept up into the hinterland of the island, beckoning us to follow it all the way in. The exploring part of me, the small voice that keeps quiet most of the time but sometimes speaks out, called loudly then; it wanted me to continue until I had found what was at the end of that glacier and to go further and further again until I had come to the other side of the island and even then to continue. Luckily it is not an overpowering voice and I can satisfy it by simply doing something new, smaller in scope but new nonetheless. 

 

The Neumayer Glacier beckons

 

On the return

At the top of the pass Hazel took her skins off (on her skis) and proceeded to fly down the shallow slope that leads down to Sphagnum valley and to Harpon. I plodded along behind as fast as I could without tripping over and the feeling of flying through the crisp air was wonderful, I regret my wretched knees which stop me skiing but am determined one day to learn (just not here where access to a hospital is non existant).

We reached a small ravine with waist deep snow that we decided it was unnecessary to cross so we stopped and dug ourselves a ‘snow sofa’ which we lined with our bivy bags. We both decided never to go off on a snowy day hike without a roll mat in the future; our fronts were warmed by the sun but our backs and bottoms were decidedly chilly. Nevertheless we had a lovely lunch and then decided to head back into the valley on the base side of the peninsula for a little exploration. It was so cold that it took both of us half an hour to regain feeling in our hands and then at the top of the pass we had to stop again for me to fix my snowshoe which had snapped at a rather vital pivot point. Duck tape is a distinct necessity in life and I never go anywhere without some wrapped round a pencil or my walking poles. [Star Wars geeky joke alert: Why is Duck tape like The Force? Because it has a light side, a dark side and it holds the universe together!]

Snow sofa

 

Yep, my water bottle froze

We returned to base elated and ready for our next adventure. 

This came in the form of boating all the next morning which was lovely. Again the weather was perfect and we got some good photos of the entrance to the bays, which is rare. It was distinctly cold and both Hazel (who was my crew) and I lost all feeling in our feet waiting on the boat. We had another ship to deal with but in a very civilised manner we came back ashore and Jo, Hazel and I had a brunch of Eggs Benedict, my favourite. 

Transshipping

 

View from the jetboat

 

Next stop: South Africa

Once we had finished boating we went out again. This time Nik and Jo joined us and we went to the dam at the top of Gull Lake to wait for the arrival of the Hercules. The RAF sometimes send Hercules planes down here from the Falklands for a couple of reasons, one of which is to aid with fisheries protection. They have to refuel to get here and back and they can’t stay over the bays for very long but it was worth it to see it fly in under the mountains, it was rather a thrilling sound.

 

Hercules (look hard - it's tiny)

All in all it has been a lovely bank holiday weekend and if we could just order some more of that weather the rest of the week will be perfect.