Will we, won't we .....

We are just rounding the south tip of Wiencke Island, probably now within half an hour of Port Lockroy, glorious sunny evening, plenty of fresh new snow around. We were informed this morning that they were going to try and land us and our 9 tonnes of cargo tonight! So we had to bring our on-board shop forward to lunchtime today - it was mayhem! and a good taste of the weeks to come. Took an amazing amount of money in 3 hours - wish it was my shop. Surprised how tiring it was, we were all quite exhausted afterwards.

Have had a couple of landings over the past days - visited a Brazilian base, it was cozy despite being under snow. They had dug a path down to the front door which appeared underground, but of course wasn't normally. Was very jealous of their central heating!

Just been out to see a passing pod of orcase, and now I must go and put my last few things in bags and get my thermals on! If we don't make land then I will be able to write again soon .... if we do land it may be some time!

A glorious day in South Georgia! We moor up overnight just off Grytviken, in the bay, so have a beautifully calm night and a good sleep. Up for a run at 6.30, breakfast and then off on the first boat at 9am. Meet Sarah Lurcock, the Postmistress here, good to make contact with her and again pick up some tips, though she is pretty busy with our shipload of tourists. Visit Shackleton’s grave, and the museum which has many old whaling artefacts, and some wonderful photographs of Shackleton’s expeditions. We really couldn’t have asked for a better day, it’s so beautiful and I talk to the museum curator about staffing for the next season! It’s just a thought – might as well keep my options open! In the evening we have a silent movie of Frank Hurley’s cine film of the Imperial Transantarctic Expedtion. It’s astonishing footage, all the more so because of what it survived. The black and white photo above shows the 22 men left on Elephant Island waving off the James Caird as Shackleton leaves to try and reach South Georgia after the loss of the Endurance.

First ice bergs! Then we see plenty more in the next few days. Rick says he doesn’t remember seeing such big ones here this time last year. They will have come out of the Weddell sea a couple of years ago.

Penguins galore

Another couple of days fly by at sea – a mix of runs, visits to the gym and sauna, lectures, bits of work, punctuated all too regularly by enormous meals of wonderful food.
Arrive South Georgia – two landings the first day, at Fortuna Bay, followed by a visit to the derelict whaling station of Stromness. King penguin colonies at both places, the weather is pretty dire at Fortuna Bay. Sit in the horizontal sleet waiting for penguins to walk past me, some come up really close to have a look. The chicks are so funny, standing around hunched against the wind in their enormous fur coats. Plenty of Antarctic skuas around too, hunting around for scraps. Getting pretty cold now, but don’t want to walk back facing into the wind and snow! Many people leave before their allotted 90 minutes ashore.

Postmistress Lessons

A great day in Stanley, changeable weather, at times bitter and then glorious sun in the afternoon. Spend a couple of hours in the post office, picking up £68,000 worth of stamps – makes for a pretty heavy suitcase! I go back to Sally’s house (she was the Postmistress at Lockroy last year) for lunch and a chat about running the PO. She has some good advice about how to keep people moving quickly through the shop and prevent postcard frenzies! Then meet the others again for a fun game of badminton! Not what the average tourist does in Stanley I suppose! The others have all been here before, but when I point out that it is my first time and I really ought to be seeing the sights, Rick and Tudor take me on a guided tour for an hour or so til we end up in the pub, which is a Falkland Islands experience not to be missed!

rugby on the beach

Had two superb landings in the Falklands - Westpoint Island and New Island. Had the good luck (or skill) to position myself next to our resident bird expert on landing - within the first minute we had spotted turkey vultures, kelp geese, upland geese, flightless steamer ducks, striated caracara, blackish oystercatchers (yes they really are called that), long-tailed meadow larks (aka Falkland robins - bright orange breast) and a pair of peregrines. Wonderful! Strolled over the island to black-browed albatross and rockhopper colony. Amazingly close, and unperturbed by our presence.

Some of our party members made a run for the first boat back to catch the rugby final - I hung back and by happy discovery found a man with a radio! so half a dozen of us stood on a beach listening to the last 20 minutes. Not that it cheered us any. Quite a bizarre place to be listening to the world cup final though!

It's swell on board

Third morning on the Nordnorge – getting up to grey skies and drizzle. Up on deck a little later than usual feeling pretty groggy from a rough night and drugged by the Stugeron! Poor Rachel wasn’t very well, the swell got up a bit just before we went to bed, but she has resorted to her first ‘anti-nausea patch’ and is coping fine now. Too wet and slippy for our morning run, so brisk power walking round the deck followed by sun salutations, which have worked as the sun is now out! Our numbers are swelling – there were 6 of us taking the sea air today! Usual splendid breakfast and then an IAATO briefing to prepare us for Antarctic landings, followed by our own briefings on Health & Safety, and the daily routine at Lockroy from Tudor and Rick. Very sleepy afterwards! Rachel had a snooze while I went for lunch.

off out now to look for albatrosses! there were a few giant petrels following us earlier.

We arrive at the Falklands tomorrow, landing at some small islands with albatross colonies, and then on to Stanley on Sunday. We have been trying to figure out how to get to Stanley by tomorrow afternoon to watch the rugby final! but I don’t think it is going to be possible, and there is no TV reception on board ship. Oh, well, as mum always says, they will probably do better if we are not watching!

boxes, boxes everywhere!

We have got onto a routine of a 20-minute run round deck 5 followed by some yoga before breakfast. It’s great to have Rachel as a running partner, there is also a Norwegian lady who we have teamed up with, and tomorrow we will get the boys out too! We will have to see how long we can keep going for, until the seas get too rough for it to be safe I suppose. The days are flying by, I went to a lecture about the sub-antarctic islands, and tonight they screened a couple of episodes of David Attenborough’s Life in the Freezer. But we are still all a bit tired from missing a night’s sleep on the plane, and look forward to lying down at night.
We went to investigate all our boxes of cargo today, and weeded out the ones we will need for the on board shop that we will do after South Georgia. Was pleased to see that my box of personal stuff was there – I had wondered whether it might still be in Rick’s spare room, but didn’t like to ask!
More bird-watching this afternoon, plus reading the manual for the new camera I bought in duty free, and the draft Operations Manual for Lockroy. Then cocktails and dinner. It’s a hard job, but someone’s got to do it!

coz I'm a wanderer...

Rachel is writing a blog! She has already posted messages and images, and will probably be more dedicated about keeping it up than I will be. The address is
www.rachelhazellisaway.wordpress.com so it might be more worthwhile checking there to see how things are going with us. We will also be sending updates every now and again to the UK AHT website www.ukaht.org

The talk today with the crew has been about the extent of the ice cover. Apparently Bransfield strait is full of ice (with one tabular iceberg the size of Elephant Island), there is 9/10ths ice cover all around Lockroy and it isn’t looking likely that we will be able to land at all. Rachel asked our First Officer what the Nordnorge could cope with and the answer was 1 or 2 tenths ice, he said the ship was fragile ‘like an eggshell’, which wasn’t immensely reassuring! So we may well have another week up to Ushaia and then have to come back down. We will have to see what happens when we get nearer. Last year it was completely clear at this time.

We have had superb weather, hot and sunny and very calm. This morning I saw my first albatrosses, following the ship. Wandering – they are HUGE – and black-browed. Also the little cape petrels are everywhere. It is so warm that I really can’t imagine that we are heading towards ice! although we have a way to go yet.

We're Off!

Safely arrived on the Nordnorge! basking on deck in tropical heat, fighting off the mosquitos. The one thing I didn’t bring for an Antarctic voyage was insect repellent! or shorts – I have had to borrow some from Rick who has brought two pairs (!).

We had a smooth and well-prepared journey, once I had found my passport, collected my North Face boots (on the morning of departure!) and got off the wrong train and onto the correct one! The only stumbling block was our 31 kg of excess baggage! the bill was over £600, but Rick did some smooth talking and got it down to £100 in the end, which was a bit of a relief.

We settled in to our cozy cabins, I am sharing with Rachel, and Rick with Tudor, then had a superb buffet dinner and watched from the deck in the dark as we set sail out of Buenos Aires and off down river guided by several pilots.

About this blog

This blog is administered by James. Helen is now (Oct 15) on her way to Port Lockroy and should be there there around the start of November, staying for about 4 months. Hopefully she will have some email access (or else this blog is pretty useless!) but it may be rather limited. They have an Iridium phone and a generator...

(Update 2 Nov: she has landed and the email seems to be working.)

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