Visits and Vistas

Last week was an incredible busy but very rewarding one. In the end it was right down to the line whether we got Pat and Sarah back in time for the Naval visits or not. We finally managed to head out to them on Tuesday morning, early and although the wind picked up slightly we managed to get them and bring them home to everyone’s relief. It had been weighing rather on my mind. Just after they arrived RFA Black Rover arrived and we started the long process of naval visits. Black Rover didn’t have any of their own boats so we ran them ashore. Since they are a merchant vessel they have much fewer people on board than a naval vessel (only 57 on board the Black Rover which is the same size as HMS Richmond which has 180 people on board). This meant that we could do ‘bus times’ and get people ashore and aboard pretty easily. Someone at the top of the ladder said “you’ll have a lot tomorrow morning” to which I asked “How many?” “Ten” she said at which point Daniel and I laughed and said that for us and a naval visit, 60 was a lot.

Charity shot. Note ridiculous snowshoes

On Wednesday we went from high winds and sea conditions to flat calm and a snow storm. The snow was so heavy that I had to use Radar to be able to find the Black Rover which was anchored only about 1 nautical mile off the jetty. It was very disorientating and with Rod at the helm we found ourselves heading out to sea rather than back into the bay but that was quickly rectified. We had been in the middle of our spring thaw and had been able to see the ground nearly everywhere but during this one day of snow everything was covered again and we even considered shutting the track again. It was remarkable.

On Thursday as soon as the Black Rover had left, the HMS Richmond came in hot on her heels. This was her second visit in a month and this time they had returned carrying Hugh, the postmaster and three new Museum staff: Chris and Josie, the new museum helpers and Suzane the new curatorial intern. They are all lovely and after leaving them in a little bit of a daze in biosecurity I had to run to return to the Richmond to collect Jo and Rod who I had taken on board for a briefing and with them collect Russell La Forte, the Commander of the British Forces in the South Atlantic, his wife Jillian and his ADC Tom. They all got a tour and then Jo gave them a hasty lunch in Shack Villa before we took them over to Grytviken to visit the museum and church.

That evening Rod and Sue were invited on board the Richmond along with Pat and Sarah for a VIP dinner. We had 6 chaps come ashore to us for dinner for us to say thank you for hosting us to Penguin racing when they were last in. It was a lovely dinner and they were massively appreciative of our “real mashed potato, made with real potatoes?” Apparently they get ‘Smash’ on board. It was lovely to be able to host a dinner as BAS, usually it is the government that host the dinner but this time it was all on us which was nerve-wracking for poor old Hazel who was on cook on Thursday (especially when we discovered that one of the guests was a leading chef) but very nice to be able to do.

Gentoos on nests

On Friday Hazel, Jo and I took 7 chaps from the ship to Maiviken. Unfortunately we didn’t have enough snowshoes so they had to use ‘tennis rackets’ from the military days which were ridiculous and their feet kept falling out of but it was better than them having to trudge through knee deep snow. We made it to Maivken in good time and went down to have a look at the Gentoo colony and then further down to have a look at the beach and give them a closer look at the Ellies. They were rather startled at the size of the males. Although the weather clagged in when we returned it was an excellent walk and they all said how much they had enjoyed it.

After that rather busy and very tiring week Hazel, Jo and I decided the best way to relax would be to pack up all we needed in rather large packs and walk across the peninsula, over the mountain range in the middle on the hunt for a cave that we had heard alot about. It is called Curlew Cave and can be found in Carr Valley. Tim and Pauline Carr sailed down here in their yacht ‘Curlew’ and stayed for 14 years running the museum etc. They used to kayak around the coast and Curlew Cave was where they would stash their kayaks as a base to explore the Western side of the peninsula.

Climbing No Name Col

Top of No Name Col

On top of the World

Luckily we emailed them and got detailed instructions of how to get there or I am not sure we ever would have found the cave. We headed up past the lakes over Maiviken to No Name Col. We were a little worried about this because we had done it earlier in the season with Rod and it had required ice axes and crampons and was altogether rather unpleasant, we were not sure we wanted to do that with large packs on our back but in the end with further investigation of the map and the Carr’s instructions we found that we had actually gone up the wrong col with Rod. It was a much easier and more enjoyable route up and the view down into Carr valley was definitely worth the slog with the large packs. We dropped down into the valley and dumped our gear.

Carr Valley

 

 We immediately started to look for the cave. This involved going down a rather steep and unpleasant tussock slope with a couple of dead ends, dropping off into cliffs. We eventually found our way down to a beach and from there we found the slit in the rock that is the landward entrance. It is an amazing cave and I can see why they used and loved it. We have had some remarkably high tides recently so the floor had recently been awash, that and the Carr’s warning that they weren’t sure about the roof meant that we decided to camp in the valley above but we were very pleased to have found it.

Entrance to Curlew Cave

Curlew Cave

 We then spent a happy hour or so watching the Sooty Albatrosses wheeling above our heads and landing on nesting ledges. They fly in pairs; formation flying in extremely graceful and beautiful turns and wheels. It was glorious. As we climbed the tussock slope to get back to the valley we were able to stop and watch a chap on his nest preening himself and calling. It is such a privilege to be able to get so close to them and for these magnificent birds to be so completely oblivious to our presence. It was really humbling actually. Hazel very nearly didn’t bring the big lens for her camera but luckily we persuaded her that it was worth it and she had a big grin on her face for the entire time we were over there (one of the things she most wanted to do was to manage to photograph Sooties on a nest and there we were meters from them).

So Beautiful (A Sooty Albatross)

Sooty Photo by Hazel Woodland

While the valley was extremely flat and green it was really rather damp everywhere so we had to try and find the flattest, driest patch we could to pitch our tent. The flattest we could find happened to be a slope of about 15-20’. Not the most comfortable. Jo had a ridge in her back which stopped her from sliding down, Hazel had an extremely non slip thermarest but I found myself curled up in the foetal position at the bottom of the slope most of the night. Hazel and Jo said that in the morning they turned to look at each other and realised that there was something missing in the middle: me. It was very funny.

Down in Carr Valley

The hike back up to the col was not the most pleasant with all our gear, including a now wet and therefore heavier tent but we were met at the top by Micky who had come bearing bacon sandwiches! A real knight in shinning armour. At the top the cloud came in and we couldn’t see anything but luckily we could just follow our footsteps back down the hill. We got home much earlier than anticipated and after a well deserved shower we took Rod and Nik to Sorling so that they could have an early start on their way over to St Andrews on Monday.

Tea on the way home Photo by Hazel Woodland

All in all it has been a very enjoyable week for a number of different reasons. Let’s see what next week brings us.

The Little Things

“Well, there seems to be slightly more ‘missing’ from the right side than the left”. Said with a slightly sheepish look on Hazel's face.

“What exactly do you mean by missing?” I said. This was while I was sitting in the laundry, where we had been for the past hour or so.

One of the few things I didn’t think about before I left for the Sub Antarctic was how I was going to get a haircut. I have a fair amount of hair (albeit short) and if it is not cut at fairly regular intervals my impression of a shaggy Puli dog gets to be rather too good.

Puli dog - or is it Ella?

 It turns out that there are four ways of getting a hair cut on the island: 1. Don’t (not an option), 2. Shave your head before arriving and let it grow till you leave (also not an option), 3. Get an extremely expensive haircut on one of the very few cruise ships that have that facility (not an option in winter when there are no cruise ships), 4. Persuade someone on base that it would be a good idea to try cutting my hair. Somehow I managed to con Hazel into the idea that cutting my hair would be a new and interesting thing to do. She has regretted this ever since. The main cry when she starts cutting is: “Oh dear God I had forgotten quite how much ridiculous hair you have”. Usually by this stage she has cut slightly too much for her to just leave it because, as she says, she does have to look at me. This was the 4^th time that I have managed to con her into cutting my hair and, as we both decided, definitely the last. She has done a remarkably good job every time and I now look vaguely human again (any lack of humanity is not due to the hair cut). The only thing wrong with this arrangement on my side is that for the next week I have to endure her looking very carefully and critically at her handiwork every time she sees me. This time I seem to have passed muster rather quicker than before.

I finished my last blog expressing the hope that my time in the engine bay may have been coming to an end. Unfortunately for both Erny and myself this does not seem to be the case. We have been struggling with problems with the damn port engine of Pipit for a week and a half now and both of us are getting rather fed up. Neither of us have any idea what the trouble could be and both wish ardently that it would just bloody start working. Anyway, moving swiftly on……

Having a hair cut is one of the little things that you never think would be an issue till it is. One of the little things that I did worry about was running out of things. Due to wise ordering of food by the previous doc and some excellent bargaining and deal making by Hazel, our food stores looks extremely healthy, much healthier than they did when we arrived at any rate. Therefore running out of food has never been an issue. Running out of drink has been more of a concern. This season we had rather more visiting scientists and other teams than anticipated. This meant that our bond (drink store) did get rather depleted by the middle of winter,  necessitating an extra order from the Falklands which was gratefully received a couple of months ago. However we seem to currently only have one bottle of tonic on the entire island which could be slightly tricky since gin has not yet run out. I intend to attempt to have some brought in on HMS Richmond when she arrives for another visit next week.

One thing that was NOT a little thing that we very nearly ran out of was loo roll. Now the previous BC (base commander) made a careful calculation of usage, number of sheets per person per day etc, but again we had rather more visiting scientists and others than anticipated. Loo roll is NOT repeat NOT something you want to run out of, that would not be a little thing, that would be a rather major event. Luckily, again, we managed to get resupplied from the Falklands a few months ago and we unloaded a rather large stack to audible sighs of relief.

As you can see it is the little things on base that matter, not the seemingly big things such as having to provide the boatshed to act as a helicopter hanger. Those things are fine, but run out of tonic and loo roll and things could get ‘interesting’. It is also the little things that one misses from home: fresh milk, rather than having to make up milk from powder and water before making a cup of tea; sleeping in a real bed rather than a bunk bed; having fresh fruit and vegetables at your finger tips; having a dog to rest his chin on your foot when you have cold feet (how do they always know?);

 not having to do scrubout on a Friday at 1530.

Other than sit and think about the little things this week, and when I have not been in an engine bay, I have been busy taking Pat and Sarah on holiday to Sorling. Unfortunately we couldn’t pick them up again due to inclement weather but luckily Sorling is stuffed full of spare food so they are happy. I also took Jo out to three ships conducting transhipping in the bay (this was a surprise as we thought all transhipping had finished). When we went out the anemometer reading was well within limits and the conditions in the cove were fine so we were very happy to go out. As soon as we reached the ships conditions had changed and I had to make the decision that not only was I not happy to put Jo on the pilot ladder, I was not actually very happy to go near the pilot ladder at all. In the end we hid round the back of the three ships in a nice calm lee while Jo did some quick signing of documents that were then put in a dry bag and hauled up the stern of one of the ships on a line that the crewman seemed determined to throw at my head. We were all quite happy to return to base after that.

On Thursday we had Big Base Scrubout which was basically a spring clean. We cleaned behind fridges, along skirting boards, I scrubbed doors etc. The base now looks sparkling and ready for the season ahead.

Today Hazel, Micky and I went towards Glacier Col for a rather windy walk. We found that the ice cave had collapsed over the winter which was a surprise but otherwise it was a lovely walk. 

Ice cave before

 

Ice cave after

We hope to be able to nip out and collect Pat and Sarah tomorrow morning, unfortunately this will necessitate us leaving base at 0630 which seems to be the calmest time at the moment. 

Local traffic hazard

A Weekend Away

Scree has its own smell. I haven’t smelt it since the beginning of the winter when the snow covered the stuff. It is the smell of adventure and a little bit of fear but it is a good smell.

After another long week of tinkering with Prion’s engines Erny and I brought her up to nearly full power and speed. She smokes like the devil at low revs but at high revs it clears and all in all Erny and I are very pleased with her. Just when I thought I could relax I discovered that one of Pipit’s banks of batteries is dead. Luckily I don’t think that will be a big job so I finished the week pretty relaxed.

Hazel and I looked at the weather and decided that we would try and get over to Harpon on the weekend. We did an early scrubout on Friday and headed off. The weather was perfect, sunny and not too much wind. We made good time over Echo Pass and while we got a little disorientated getting down to the hut (neither of us had been to Harpon over Echo Pass before), we got there in very good time. We wandered to Lyell Glacier which is covered in moraine, so much so that it doesn’t really look like a glacier until you get to the face. We then wandered up in the other direction and looked at the Ellies (Elephant seals). We have discovered that the Ellies over in Harpon are much tetchier than the ones round us; this is not surprising, since they never see people but it was a little surprising the first time we got chased by a female. Both Hazel and I at different times went to the beach to go to the loo and were chased into the tussock by a big bull Elly who most decidedly did not want us on his patch of beach. 

Coming down scree

Trail-breaker making steps

From Echo Pass

Lyell Glacier

 Having come over ‘fast and light’ we had rat packs for dinner but we seem to mind these far less than anyone else on base. I think this comes from both of us having eaten them at varying times on expeditions. We even have favourites. We don’t have my favourite on base unfortunately but we do havae the next best thing: chilli con carne, it rehydrates very well (very important, you do not want powder at the bottom of your rat pack). With a mug of wine and then a hip flask of whiskey we sat outside the hut admiring the stars and the half moon reflecting on the water. I even saw two shooting stars streak across the velvet sky.

Saturday dawned a little misty but that soon burnt off and we headed up the valley next to the Lyell Glacier on the hunt for Lyell Lake. After wandering along the moraine field for an hour or so we decided we wouldn’t be able to continue the way we were going so we climbed up into the high tops and decided to try for Glacier Col.

Morning mist

 We had lunch tucked behind a rock because the wind was picking up but with an amazing view of this incredible giants playground that we are just allowed to wander round in. It was at this point that the contours of the map changed from surveyed contours to estimated contours so we made sure that we were slightly more conservative in our navigation. We didn’t make it to Glacier Col but we did summit on a peak that looked down on base as a speck in the distance and Lyell Lake (our primary objective) at its foot. It was incredibly windy, with the mountain trying to blow us off,  but the views were worth the tightening I get in my tummy every time I get near a summit on ridges (with or without wind trying to knock me off).  We got back down and went a different route back to the hut but still didn’t quite make it there before the shower of rain hit us. It was only a spattering though and we were soon snug in the hut.

On the peak             (photo: H. Woodland)

  We had thought (from looking at the hut indent) that there was a sufficient supply of loo roll in the hut but we arrived to find this was not quite the case. Now this would have been fine except that Hazel had a streaming cold and required a fair bit of loo roll for nose blowing purposes. On the hunt for more loo roll we discovered both soups and puddings as well as extra ration packs (no extra loo roll unfortunately but I do want to reassure everyone that we did not run out, we just got a little close). Since it was Saturday night we decided we would have a three course dinner of thick pea soup followed by beef stroganoff,  finishing off with a ‘cheesecake’ created by Hazel from ration pack biscuits, rat pack chocolate chip pudding and a tin of peaches we had left there when doing hut checks. It was incredibly rich but surprisingly delicious. What with the other half bottle of wine and some more whiskey from my hip flask, it was a lovely evening.

During dinner we had noticed that the wind was picking up. I went outside to brush my teeth to find my legs stopping one of the (metal and not exactly light) snowshoes that had been wedged near the door from flying away. Unluckily we were too late for me to rescue one of my gaiters that had been hanging up to dry - we think it now might be on the Busen Peninsula. This wind increased until the entire hut shook with the force of an express train. Both Hazel and I were convinced that either we and the hut were going to be taken away to the land of Oz, or that the roof and/or a wall was going to be blown away. It was so strong that I made sure my bag was to hand and Hazel considered getting her bivvy bag and putting it in her sleeping bag so that at least she could be warm and dry if the roof did come off. What with that and poor old Hazel’s cough neither of us got a very good night’s sleep.

We awoke (or came out of a doze) on Sunday morning to find the wind had not yet abated and when we looked out of the window we could see winds of up to about 50kts  screaming across the water. We were very worried at first in case any pups had been washed away but we were pretty sure that none were, which made us very relieved. As we were eating breakfast we watched two males have a fight so intense that when they went into the water the sea suddenly became red with blood. It is incredible to see these fights and the huge amount of blood produced and then to see these monsters lying on the beach with bleeding cuts and know that really they are OK and keen to continue with fighting and mating.

Luckily the wind died enough for us to consider leaving the hut. We then did our morning sched; everyone off base has to do a sched (scheduled communication) in the evening to give plans for the next day but the Doc and the Base Commander have to sched in at 0900 as well to make sure that everything on the base is OK. After cleaning the hut we set off along the beach. We had decided to go along our side of the peninsula and then cross back to the base side via Boulder Pass. We wandered up the beach saying a friendly hello to any and all seals we passed, not always getting as friendly a hello back. We decided we definitely wanted to be on the tussock side of seals in case they did charge - I do not want to find myself running into the sea with a heavy pack being chased by a big male seal!

Coming down Boulder Pass (photo: H. Woodland)

Peek-a-boo!


At about midday we came upon the ridge just above Papua beach. We sat down in blustery conditions prepared to be drizzled upon during lunch but just as we started putting marmite on our oatcakes the clouds cleared and the sun started to blaze. We spent the next two hours alternately dozing and enjoying the view. As long as we were lying down the wind didn’t touch us and it was lovely. It is only on South Georgia that one sunbathes in sallopetes and primaloft jacket with just one’s nose peeking out, but it definitely works. After our much needed nap we slowly headed up Boulder Pass. The top of the pass was as lovely as ever with frozen lakes covered in snow and a wonderful view into Bore Valley. Once we came down the pass into the valley we met Micky, one of the builders, and wended our weary way home.

All in all it was a lovely weekend and all the better for the wonderful weather and it being the end (hopefully) of my troubles in the engine bay. Now we just have to think up another excuse to go away for the weekend.

Nest building