My last full week. Not a good feeling.

Today is December 1^st;  on the 5^th or 6^th I will get on a ship and leave South Georgia!

 I am not sure I can describe how that feels. It will be exactly 13 months since I first set foot on this magical isle. 13 months in which I have experienced soaring highs and plummeting lows (far far less lows than highs); where I have been able to experience some of the most amazing scenery and surroundings; live in a BBC wildlife series every day; work with dedicated people, make incredible friends and discover a resilience (mainly for dealing with engines) within myself that I was pretty sure was there but I now have had confirmed repeatedly.

When I woke last Monday with the realisation that this was my last full week here, I decided to make the most of it. Nearly every evening I have been going out for walks and when I was in the office I was mainly just looking out of the window.

I spent most of the week completing the handover for my new guys. This involved more training, showing them how to do maintenance and mostly a lot of talking. I don’t know how they feel but I was tired of the sound of my own voice by about Smoko on Monday. The poor guys had to endure my explanations of things but so far, all credit to them, they haven’t asked me to shut up or go away. The funniest bit of the handover was the dry run of slipping a jetboat. We couldn’t do it properly since 1. There was a ship tied up and we can’t slip a boat when there is a ship in the way and 2. The tide wasn’t right. When I said “we’ll do a dry run” I could see them rolling their eyes and asking themselves why on earth we were bothering. When we had hitched the JCB up to the trailer and then spent 15 mins trying to manoeuvre it around a pile of wood and a seal they began to see the point. In the end we had to move the wood because we couldn’t get the trailer to do what a normal trailer should. After half an hour more of my careful explanations and demonstrations (well, more me saying something then adding “Oh I forgot to say...”) they looked both frazzled and worried and we decided that I would leave them my number so if ever they got the boat stuck half way on the trailer they could call me and ask for advice. Perhaps not the best way to leave things but without actually slipping the boat it was the best I could do. It took about 2 hours to go through the whole thing and I think they had more respect for the system and the boats after that. I just hope that the first time they do it, it goes smoothly. 

I was very good on Thursday and didn’t get out of bed and allowed them to deal with taking people out to a ship early in the morning by themselves. It was tough though. Those boats have been my babies for 13 months and for 13 months I have nearly always been the one on the water so to leave them to it took a certain amount of self control. I was very proud of myself. Later on that day we tried to get round to West Cumberland Bay to do the last bit of local knowledge stuff but the wind and swell combined to outwit us at Sappho Point and we had to turn round. It was a good experience because they got to see what conditions we would go home in and I was able to introduce them to the most glamorous of the boaties’ duties: food scraps. Lovely, at least it feeds the birds.

On Tuesday Julie and I walked round to Susa Point along the beach. We found the first fur seal pups over this side of the bay and spent a fair amount of time cooing at them (well Julie did, I acted like a big bad, experienced winterer and remained cool on the outside while inside all I was doing was saying: “so cute, so cute, I want one”). We walked past one very pregnant female and then when we turned back almost immediately she had a new pup. It was literally 3.5 mins old and was lovely. Well no, it was slimy and squeaking but lovely none the less. We also came across a pup that was about 3 days old and so full of attitude it bounced towards us on its flips trying to scare us off. However, what it didn’t know was that pup growls are very endearing so it didn’t have quite the desired effect. 

Brand spanking new pup

Lunch time

Pint sized attitude

On Friday we finally had a break in the wind and we went round to West Cumberland Bay while we could. Rod asked us to take some wood to Sealers cave for a possible ex winterers last night away. This meant we took Dotty, the 2.5m tender (and pride of the fleet) with us. We dropped the wood at Sealers cave at Maiviken and then proceeded up West Cumberland Bay. I got Matthew to drive close to the shore when we got near Carr Valley so I could see if I could find the entrance to Curlew Cave. It was small wonder that we couldn’t see it before when we weren’t sure where it was. It is perfectly hidden. As we drove on the sun came out and twinkled on the glaciers at the end of the bay. It also highlighted the Sooties soaring around the boat and cliffs. It was at that point that I started to really think about the fact that I may never come back here again or if I do it won’t be for a long time. I had to leave the cabin and go outside so the chaps wouldn’t see the tears start to course down my cheeks. When we got back to the jetty I was greatly cheered by the snottiest seal I have ever seen. He really was very special. 

Dotty, rather full of new boatmen

 

Launch from Sealers Cave

Entrance to Curlew Cave from the sea

Snotty

The weekend dawned snowy and nasty. It was really rather unpleasant. Julie, Tim and I had said we would help Daniel count Penguin nests so we duly trudged over to Maiviken in the snow. I was wearing my waterproofs which I never normally wear so that was an odd feeling. My boots are no longer waterproof at all. I am not surprised. I have battered them and tramped them through most of our travel area for 13 months, over some of the least forgiving terrain there is: scree and acidic bog. I have come to love those boots and have never had a bad time in them.

The penguins were very unimpressed with the snow, as were we. I nearly had to put on my snow goggles just to be able to see to count them. Once we had finished we went down to have a look at Tortula and then Daniel continued on his rounds while we retreated to the hut for tea and lunch. Tim and Julie said they could see why Daniel eats quite so much if he has to do that every other day and were incredibly impressed with Hazel’s record of the Maiviken run of 47mins – an amazing achievement.

Unimpressed by the weather

Ugly chick .......

......but look who grew up all beautiful

On Sunday it was no longer snowing... it was raining, even worse. Deciding that I need to make the most of this place no matter what, I determined to go out anyway but not to Papua beach which I had been planning on, rather to Penguin River for a short walk and then back. Valiantly Micky and Julie decided to accompany me. Fortified by several cups of coffee and pancakes (we were mainly waiting for the rain to stop which it didn’t) we headed round. We decided to go via the beach. Although it means having to deal with more Furries than going along Brown Flats, it allowed us to see more pups. It was a most enjoyable walk, the only thing that caused a small flutter was when a ‘psycho seal’ came charging towards us.  Micky put out his aluminium walking pole in prescribed seal fending off fashion at which point this large male bit the walking pole in two, shook it and took it off with him into the tussock. I am not sure about Micky but my heart rate definitely rose slightly. It is so easy to become blasé about the seals but it takes an episode like that to just remind one that they can be vicious. All’s well that ends well though and we continued and finished a very nice walk, avoiding that part of the beach on the return.

I am now about to go and eat dinner with the builders for the last time and then spend another evening contemplating packing and mainly drinking tea.

I will write another blog when I leave but I will not be able to post it till I arrive back in Stanley. So for now, from South Georgia, I will sign off.

Out

Planet in the night sky

A last rainbow

The beginning of the end

At the end of my last blog I was about to go and meet the new winterers. They have now been on base for one week exactly and they seem to have settled in pretty well.

This week has been pretty manic. We started handover on Monday. My new guys, Tim and Matthew,  are both experienced boatmen. Tim was the boaty at Rothera (he is the 10 month boaty while Matthew is the boaty with the yearlong contract) and they are both very good. However neither of them have had more than the day’s course on a jet boat that BAS sent them on before they came down, and that was a single engine jetboat, so completely different to what we have here.

I will admit that after the first hour on the water with them I did think that we would have to spend every possible hour training, but as the week has gone on we have spent some more time on the water and they are getting on very well. They had to learn quickly, which they were able to do,  and I am very pleased and less worried about leaving “my” boats in their hands. 

The new guys on Prion

 

On Tuesday we went round East Cumberland Bay on a local knowledge gathering tour. We went right up to the Nordenskold Glacier. I rather took it as probably my last visit to all these places that have been part of my working world for a year. A farewell tour maybe. We went up to the glacier and I took control of the boat as they took their photos. It was glorious. I noticed about 50 terns fluttering at the base of the glacier; they must have been feeding off plankton attracted by the nutrients released when it calves. It was a lovely sight, as were the icebergs, and I was reminded yet again why I love this job. 

The Nordenskold again

Dirty iceberg

On Wednesday the JCR returned from relief at Bird Island to do relief here. This meant that a year’s worth of dry and frozen food and drink came off. We were also meant to receive all the cargo that we had ordered over the year. Due to a small timing issue some of the cargo didn’t make the JCR and we will have to get it at last call on the Shack in March. Last year we had to do relief by cargo tender since the weather was not right for her to come alongside but luckily this year she came alongside and we could manage things much quicker. It snowed for the first part of Wednesday which made tallying off the food boxes a bit of a chore, with soggy lists, but it soon cleared and we spent the rest of the day ‘happily’ emptying boxes and putting them away. It was extremely impressive to see how tidy the dry food store was compared to last year. Hazel and Julie (the new doc) did a fantastic job.

Luckily due to weather (perfect weather is needed for relief at BI and they hadn’t quite finished it yet) and BASMU (the BAS medical unit) requesting that the docs get more than the one day handover received last year, the JCR stayed till Friday morning. This meant that we could have a BBQ on Thursday after finishing relief and a bit of a social with the crew and scientists aboard. Before that my new guys and I managed to label, book in and put away most of the boaties’ cargo which was an impressive feat since it took Matt Kenney and me three days last year.

Friday saw Hazel leaving South Georgia to act as the JCR doc for the next 5 months. I am not going to describe it too much but it was an unbelievable wrench to see her go. To add insult to injury the JCR stayed in the bay doing scientific sampling all day. It did luckily mean that when she broke the wire for some experiment or other we could provide a replacement. It was quite a fortuitous breakage since Hazel, in the rush, had managed to leave her walking boots behind. She would need these for BI and Signy before I could deliver them to get picked up in Stanley, so when a boat came back for wire I slipped the boots into the bag and she managed to get them and use them the next day. 

Hazel with a Wandering Albatross on Bird Island

 

The rest of Friday was spent going up Morraine Fjord in the RIBs for more local knowledge (and to try to clear my head) and clearing up.

On Saturday I had a dreaded Saturday Cook. It was the first big one of the season and wasn’t helped by the fact that there were no potatoes delivered since there are none to be had in Stanley. It did mean however that I started using the rather large tinned potato mountain we have (Hazel made a mistake in ordering, her only one which is very impressive, and we got more in when we could already have done with getting rid of some). It went well otherwise, especially since Julie very kindly helped out by making a delicious rice pudding and generally being a brick in the kitchen.

HMS Protector arrived on Saturday so I did boating in the middle of cooking. I couldn’t let my two new guys come alongside a ship in jetboats for the first time ever without a couple of hints and tips and then Protector kindly let us practice alongside which was great. Sunday dawned miserable so I went to the church service held by some of the crew of Protector in the church. Good old classic hymns we could all sing without accompaniment: ‘Battle hymn of the Republic’, ‘Give me peace in my heart’ and ‘For those in peril on the sea’. It was lovely. I then took Julie and the ship’s doc to the graveyard. I realised that I had not yet got a photo of myself with Shackleton’s grave (it is funny what you leave to the last minute). In  the afternoon I walked over to Maiviken with Micky. When I first got here it seemed to take forever to get over to the hut and it was a real slog, now it takes me 45 mins at a push. Remarkable how hill fit I have become. We went over to Maiviken to see the first fur seal pup born in the area. Hazel and Micky ran over to see it on Tuesday but I hadn’t seen it yet and didn’t want to leave without seeing at least one this year. 

HMS Protector

By Shackleton's grave

Furry pup

Discovering the sky

Splendid

Littering the place

Let me in!

 I finished the week with my last ever lates rounds which was a very good feeling. I then woke up on Monday morning with the slightly sickening realisation that this is my last full week on the island.

I suppose I am going to have to pack quite soon .........

The Terrible Twins' Last Hurrah

This was Hazel’s last full week on base. I am not sure who is more distressed by this, me or her. I do not like the fact that it means that I only have 17 or 18 days left on base myself. What am I going to do when I can’t look out of my window at this view? Anyway, enough of that.

Most of this week has been taken up by preparing for handover. Tidying things away, cleaning the boatshed etc. Yesterday (Saturday) Hazel and I had the joy of preparing the main freezer for the arrival of a year’s worth of frozen food. We moved a lot of boxes and made a fair amount of mess before we were done but now we have room, which will be very necessary. Hazel also has been packing and moving into my room to make room for the new guys. It is an odd feeling to be sharing again but it won’t be long. Once Hazel leaves Julie (the new doc) will take her place in my room but soon she’ll have the pit room all to herself when I leave. 

An important event this week was a visit, on a cruise ship, by Hazel’s parents. She was very pleased to be able to show them the base and the island and I was privileged to meet them. They are now on their way down to the Antarctic Peninsula and having a grand time by all accounts.

Hazel with her new coat (she's very proud of it)

 On Wednesday we decided that we needed to make sure that we had one last night off base. After work we (Hazel, Micky and I) collected our tents, stove, sleeping bags and food and headed round to Penguin River. We had planned our excursion to include bright evening sun and a calm evening but the weather, as usual, had other ideas. No rain luckily but wind and clouds which meant that we spent most of the time in the tent. We all had boil in the bag dinners, a change for Hazel and me since most of our ‘rat packs’ are dried. We had a truly lovely evening sitting in the tent chatting, drinking a bottle of wine, eating some of Hugh’s (the post master) excellent brownies and generally enjoying ourselves.

The next morning we were woken at about 0400 by the sun rising and the world rising with it. We lay in our sleeping bags just listening. We could hear the chattering of the King penguins as they stood on the spit in the middle of the river in different stages of moulting. In the distance we could hear the roaring of a bull Elephant Seal who had found a favourite echo on the cliffs and was using it to great advantage to send his challenge ringing round the bay. We could also hear the weaners (young seals) playing in the water. They are the most endearing things. Two males will come together and play, practicing fighting each other, rearing their fat bodies up and slapping each other with their necks. Sometimes however one gets distracted by the clouds and stays with his head up looking at them. His playmate is usually annoyed by this and will slap him gently with his flip until he returns his gaze to earth. I passed one a little later in the morning who was all alone in a pool just blowing bubbles. 

In various stages of moult    Photo: H. Woodland

Lurking in the ice

                 Displeased with our presence           Photo: H. Woodland

Keeping his flips warm

At about 0530 Hazel stuck her head out of our tent to check whether it was a nice day or not and said, jokingly, “I think we have the attention of a male.” She then lay back down in the tent. About five minutes later we heard a thwumping noise. Luckily Hazel looked out again and like a scalded rabbit shot out of her sleeping bag and the tent. The male that she had said had noticed us had indeed got his eye on us, not only that, he was advancing fast (the thwumping noise) to put his amorous advances into action. Hazel had to dissuade him by hitting the ground in front of his nose with a stick but he looked pretty determined. He stayed there eyeing the tent up while we had our tea but luckily Hazel had persuaded him that we were not a good bet. When we struck camp he took massive fright when we took the outer sheet off the tent and hared off. That would have been one very ‘interesting’ way to wake up.

              The terrible twins' morning tea (with smoke)        Photo: M. Sutcliffe

  

Morning tea with our admirer

Dissuading him from his amorous advances

We had a cup of tea and then had to strike camp and return to base fairly quickly. We all had to be back to work, Micky was late since he starts at 0700, and Hazel had to go onto the Fram (a cruise ship) to help with the post office. Unfortunately she was a little late, we only arrived back at base at 0800, but it was fine.

On Sunday we decided that we had to have a last weekend walk. We had heard from Kris and Josie (two of the Museumees), who had stayed at Harpon on Friday night, that there was a huge ice tunnel close to the hut so we decided to go and investigate. We had to be back on base by 1600; Hazel because she was cooking for the builders (in return for the amount of times they have cooked us two Sunday roast) and I  because I had to check the boats ready to pick up pick up the new winterers off the JCR (one of the BAS ships). It normally takes about 3 hours to get to Harpon so we left base at 0800. Hazel and Micky went into another gear and with some huffing and puffing I managed to keep up and we got to Harpon in under two hours. We found the ice tunnel and had a good investigation of it. The ice over there is covered in moraine so there was very little light that got through the ice. This made it look as if it was made of obsidian. Then as you looked into the walls you could see that there were rocks caught in the ice. It was as if you were looking at a meteor shower in space. I found it incredible to think that they were hanging there, not only in space but in time as well. Once we came out of the tunnel we made our way to the beach and had a look at the seals there. The weather then clagged in so we went to the hut and had a couple of cups of tea and bacon sandwiches kindly made and brought by Micky. 

Entrance

The ice tunnel

Suspended in time

Once we left the hut the wind, which was gale force, literally blew us up and over Echo Pass and we got home in an hour and a half. This is a record and is impressive considering that Hugh, who is a fast runner, can get to the hut in an hour and ten minutes and we were walking with packs. It was a lovely and fitting last walk and I really enjoyed it.

Once I have written this I will go down to the jetty and prepare to either go out by boat and collect the new guys arriving or wait to take the JCR’s lines as she drops items off. Once she has dropped these guys off she will turn tail and head back up the island overnight to reach Bird Island in the morning. There she will do relief and then return to us to do our relief. This is my last blog as the sole boaty on base and (probably) my penultimate one from KEP. A sobering thought but it does mean that I am closer to seeing my family and friends... and trees. I do miss trees.

On that note.

Have a good week.