Piped aboard on the 25th

As everyone knows, 25th January is when all Scots celebrate their only famous poet. It was looking unlikely that we would get a Burn's night invitation, and I had been hiding the fact that I had found some frozen tins of haggis (best before: Long Expired!)in the boat shed. It was yet another wet and windy day, we've had tremendous rain, some penguin chicks are dead in their nests and the rest are shivering sadly. After the last ship visit on the day in question Rick and I took the opportunity to nip aboard for a shower, intending to come straight back, but of course ended up in the bar, sharing champagne with a honeymoon couple and chatting to the staff. After dinner we had a lift back to base, where Rachel was just about to go out to a French yacht for a late continental dinner, so off we went again. There were 7 yachts moored behind the island, an extraordinary sight, all come in for a bit of shelter. A strange squealing sound was heard just as we were getting to the fruit
and cheese - which alarmed the yacht owners somewhat ... someone glanced out of a window. A piper on deck! The British Army aboard yacht Discoverer have been on expedition down here for a couple of months, they have paid us many visits, and helped to dig a drainage ditch around the back of the hut to aid penguin poop clearance. Two of the party are Scots and had brought not only a set of pipes, but also kilts. The piper then climbed into a zodiac and was driven on a circuit of the bay, piping as he went, kilt flying in the breeze! A wonderful moment. An invitation was issued to all yachts to come aboard, so off we went. Wondering how many people the yacht could hold! we all crowded on deck and sampled many varieties of whisky. Oh dear. We had another early start the next morning and a 350 passenger ship in at 7am .... the less said about my less-than sparkling form the better. Still it was another night to remember - we seem to be having a few of these.
The schedule is hectic for the next couple of weeks, two or three ships most days. I seem to think I might have said that before sometime! This has been our busiest month without doubt, February looks a little quieter. But we really need some good weather, as well as free time, if we are going to make any progress with the painting - my favourite job! Fingers crossed for some sun.

Chilli chocolate, jumbo oats

The postman came yesterday! Two more bags of mail from Stanley, and it was like Christmas all over again. We had an afternoon off, a wild and windy day, cosied ourselves up in the bunk room and lit the fire. I had two little packages, chocolate! extra-special chilli chocolate from Rachel (even more special because my roomies don't like chilli so I get to eat it all myself!). And a big heavy squashy parcel from Phil containing ..... jumbo oats!. Ever practical. I had been bemoaning the fact that we had very few here - they do make the best home-made muesli - and he took it upon himself to do something about it. Fantastic, down to the last packet but this should see me through. Only 6 weeks and 5 days to go til we leave, not that we are counting but Rachel and I did work it out the other day .... just curious you understand ..
The days continue much the same, with the odd spectacular highlight here and there. We had an emperor penguin visit, over on Jougla Point across the water. Of course we can't get there being boatless, but the ship that was visiting at the time gave us a zodiac trip over to view it. Beautiful big bird, amazingly huge, made the gentoos all look like babies. And even better, there were a few spare kayaks that evening, and Rachel and I borrowed a double and went out for a circuit of Goudier Is. What a treat, I had been so jealous of kayakers we had seen in the area. It was magic seeing the ice cliffs and bergs from sea level, and having penguins popping up next to us to take a look.
And having said the days are much the same, that's not quite true - they are different also! It seems that almost every day one of us has a connection to a passenger, or a visitor has some link to the early inhabitants of the base. A couple of days ago Rachel sold a stamp to a friendly couple, and they put it on a card with an Ayr address - when I had a look I was sure the address rang a bell - White Gables? It dawned on me that Judith, one of my best friends at school had lived there! They were astonished when I told them I had been in their house! admittedly not for near on thirty years - they said it had changed a bit. And took a photo of me to show Judith who they still knew. How funny, they went around the museum telling everybody of this odd coincidence.
Well, it's a wild and windy day today, the baby penguins are in a right bedraggled state and I'll be surprised if we don't have casualties poor things. But from what I have heard the weather has been grim back home, and I imagine we are still in a better position to have long sunny days than the UK. No more painting for a while, but we haven't really got time now anyway, big ships in everyday for the next week or so.

Another sunny day

Not up on the roof this time, but out painting window frames. Just thought I'd try experimenting with sending a very small image, wonder if it will work.
First ship in at 6.30 am this morning. We have been forced into changing our time zone in our habits but not our watches, and so went to bed at 9.30 pm. Argentina has for some bizarre reason gone forward an hour right in the middle of summer. We are staying on GMT -3 and so are some of the ships, but not all. Sadly it seems that the early morning visits are all from the ships that have gone to GMT -2. Still it was interesting getting through our first hundred passengers before breakfast time. And then still having 250 to go! it was a big ship - out biggest landing yet.
Absolutely gorgeous day though, not a cloud in the sky, hence the window painting this afternoon. Now we are waiting for our evening visit, due to arrive at 6 pm. They have just radioed to ask if we want the sauna turning on! some of the staff on board the ships are becoming really good friends and look after us so well. We are also invited for dinner and then the passengers will land afterwards. It's going to be a(nother) long day.
The baby penguins are growing so fast! the 'feed-me' squeaks are becoming squawks, and our first hatched are beginning to step out of the nests and experiment with pottering. They are so comically wobbly - huge bellies and ungainly flat feet. The skuas are around more and more, and occasionally we see the Lockroy flying penguins, as a poor little chick is whisked away into the air. There are even some eggs not hatched yet - we think they must be duds.
Time for tea on the verandah, and then better pack my clean clothes for socialising!

Up on the roof

Seems a bit late to be saying 'Happy New Year'! But there it is anyway. We had a really good Hogmanay, invited over to a yacht, Xplore, for a wonderful dinner, fresh avocados, roast beef, sponge with custard (more than made up for the cheese sandwich on Christmas Day!) and then they came back with us at midnight for the bells and following party in our wee hut. A great evening, dancing til dawn - well, it's hard to tell when dawn is even though the nights are drawing in now. I seem to recall being surprised when I went into our bunkroom in the early hours and found my room-mates asleep already.
Needless to say, we were all a bit delicate the next day - I have to admit to being the most delicate though! and struggled with conversation during the ship visits on the 1st. Took all my concentration to add up. Was pleased to see that our party-sharing yacht didn't move at all during the day either.
And so followed a busy busy week to begin the year. Three ships a day for a few consecutive, plus a number of yachts nipping in between big visits, the weather still continuing wild and wet. And yesterday we had a maintenance day, no ships! and the sun came out. Was a wonderful morning, I was up on the roof with a tin of bitumen paint and a sheathbill shit-scraper, and finished off the last sections over the old generator shed. Sloping and corrugated - not good for the knees. Had a break at noon for an outing of the Lockroy Harriers - I had noticed from my vantage point that the tide was good and low, lots of dry rock exposed, a chance for some exercise. Am concerned by the state I will be in when I get home - so unfit - it will take some time to regain any leg strength and lung capacity. Anyway off we went for a couple of laps - I returned for some stretching and when I next looked over there were Rick and Rachel with towels going in for a dip. I was too far away to see the
ir expressions - later found out that Rick asked Rachel to record the fact that he swam for several strokes while smiling. Followed this with lunch on the verandah, during which the wind really picked up and we all got very chilly and retired indoors. I had to go back up to finish the roof, and managed to get more trails of bitumen on me than anywhere else. Followed this with an hour trying to find grey caps in the boat shed - Rick helped move boxes, but it was still a struggle and we had to open many! I had then to scrub my arms and face with paraffin to become respectable enough to go out for dinner on Discoverer, a British Army yacht which has been with us for a couple of days while the lads scaled peaks nearby. A very pleasant evening. We have done extremely well for meals recently - in fact a late long four course lunch on one luxurious ship a couple of days ago was followed three hours later by an invitation to dinner! No wonder I need to worry about getting unhealthy.
I didn't believe Tessa when she said she put on weight in Antarctica, however we have been so overwhelmed by generosity from the ships that we have begun to give away food parcels to yachties more needy than ourselves.
Time for coffee and cake - oh dear more stodge - and then siesta til the next ship.

happy penultimate day of 2007

It's a foul, wet and windy day for our 'maintenance day' so we are in the bunkroom trying to stay warm instead of up on the roof painting. Ships are changing schedules, some are changing times to agree with Argentinian time changes, the one that was meant to be here yesterday or the day before, depending, has hit a glacier after a power failure and is not coming at all, we think. It's all a bit vague at the moment. Not quite sure what we are doing for Hogmanay, but there are a few yachts around and a couple have come in to shelter behind our island. However if this wind continues then it is doubtful if we will meet for a party, it may just be a case of a radioed Happy New Year, and an early night!
There are so many happenings I have not mentioned, a case of time and power limitations, but Rachel is managing to produce a much fuller account which I recommend. When I started this it was just intended as an update for family and friends and I have been startled to find that word has spread and I have no idea how many readers there may be! More than the dozen that I began with. A couple of passengers in the shop the other day asked which one of us was Helen ... turned out they live near Kendal and there had been an article in the Westmorland Gazette about my sojourn here. Did any one else see it, is it true!?
I also didn't mention the school group that visited recently who were astonished and surprised to find an 'old girl' here - they were from St George's in Edinburgh where I went for my 6th form years. Much reminiscing, and photos for the school magazine. They had 328 large letters to post, as a fundraising venture - hmmm, a great deal of organising of stamp-sticking. Many different values of stamp required to make up the £1.10 for each letter, as I only have a limited numbers of each denomination.
Cold toes now, must be lunchtime - which I might eat in bed!

Santa has been, and so has the stork

We have a Christmas baby! on Christmas Eve a passenger spotted a penguin chick, conveniently close to our hut. Pengy has since had a second successful hatching, and they are both peeping away and being fed regularly. How nice to see, we had been wandering around the island daily, looking at any standing mum (or dad I suppose) to see if there were still just eggs underneath or a little furry bundle. We are so looking forward to them running about, but slightly apprehensive about the pooping mess to come.
Talking of pooping penguins! we have a population explosion. There is a small plastic penguin that has been living in our bunkroom for some years, but his origin was unknown. He needs feeding with poops and then on winding up he flaps his way across the table, pooping regularly, but with not quite the same force as the real things fortunately. Now, the tragic thing was that this penguin had run out of poops and there were no suitable substitutes to be found. I knew none of this, but saw a pooper at home and brought one here for Rick's birthday. What joy! now there were two and they were able to poop and flap with each other to their heart's content. Now the amazing thing is that we have each received another as a christmas present! Oh dear, you can have too much of a good thing. We have managed to give one away so far, to a couple of Ukranian scientists who stayed with us on Boxing Day, but that's another story!

To briefly recap the last couple of days - we had a mad Christmas Eve, with three ships visiting and another calling in briefly to buy 2000 stamps and send mail. The evening turned sunny and warm and we were invited out for a barbecue on board. A lovely meal, quite surreal as they played King's College carols for us as we stood on deck in the sun with snowy mountains and icebergs all around. A far cry from the dark early nights of home. And Christmas day worked out perfectly with one ship in the morning, full of Christmas cheer. Rachel and I have taken to singing carols in the shop - sometimes the passengers join in, and sometimes they just look at us as if we are mad and ask us how long we have been here ..... too long obviously. We then had the afternoon to ourselves, put the fire on and warmed up the lounge, turned on the ipod Christmas carols, and had a cheese sandwich followed by Christmas pud and brandy sauce. Spent a lovely couple of hours opening presents and drinkin
g champagne - we were so lucky with timing as we received more mail on the 23rd - parcels and cards all round! a big thank you friends and family. A yacht came by later on, I did get round to making the mulled wine as we rushed about clearing up all the debris of paper and sweetie wrappings. So we had a few more visitors, and then happily another ship came in and invited us our for Christmas dinner - so we did get turkey after all.

Merry Christmas everyone!

So much time has passed so quickly and Christmas is nearly upon us! Our first mail arrived, one sack from Stanley PO and I had two cards - hooray. One from Martin at Keswick YHA and one from Uncle John. Most of the packages were for Rachel and it was just as much fun seeing her open them and sharing in her Christmas wishes. We have more mail coming tomorrow morning, Christmas Eve, so who knows what surprises there will be.

We have had a holiday! A wonderful day and night out on National Geographic Endeavour, the same ship that took us for a day earlier in the season. It's so thoughtful of them to realise that we don't have much opportunity to get out and about, and then do something about it. They took us to visit our neighbours - Vernadsky and Palmer stations - the former Ukranian (though British til 1995) and the latter American. We had a lovely tour round Vernadsky which ended in the bar where we were plied with vodka - memories of Mongolia! They have a bra tree behind the bar (it's an all male station!!) - Rachel was persuaded to leave hers, but I've only got a couple for the next three months, so managed to make myself scarce at the crucial moment.

And on to Palmer station for the evening where they threw a party for crew and staff. They really live in some comfort there! Massive cinema screen, a whole wall of DVDs, popcorn machine, broadband internet, free phone calls, unlimited power. You might not even notice that you are in Antarctica. They couldn't believe how we live, but I think I prefer it!

So home again and back to work. Still no chicks on our island, though they have been seen nearby. We maybe just haven't spotted them yet. The weather is varied, sunny and then snowy again. We have had our first yachts around, three visited the other day. The passengers were climbing, skiing and kayaking. We watched them on our nearby glacier - it looked wonderful. And it was hard not to wish we had a little boat as they paddled their way through the brash ice in the evening sun. We were up on the roof in our lovely red overalls with tins of bitumen paint. We haven't made much progress with painting the whole building this year yet because of all the snow and wind.

Three ships in yesterday, two today, FOUR tommorrow! we'll be a bit pooped by the 25th, but will try and have some fun regardless. I have a plan to make mulled wine for our passengers on Christmas day, as I have done for the past years for beach clean volunteers and Millom Christmas Fair-goers. Doubt I will manage the mince pies though. Thanks to all for the lovely Christmas emails I have had - it doesn't really feel very festive here, so it's nice to hear it is happening elsewhere!

(no subject)

Cold and snowing hard again! Where has summer gone? can't really complain as we have just had two glorious days.
Spent an evening sitting down by the rusty chains with a cup of tea, actually ended up lying on a flat rock like a seal. Very relaxing.
Less soothed however when I decided to uncover my long-unseen feet and give them a bracing salty dip, and on doing so discovered chilblains! The other two have had them for weeks and I was feeling marginally smug about my obviously superior circulation and/or boots. I have three on one foot and a couple on the other! Not too itchy and sore yet, perhaps now it is getting warmer I can take extra care and make them go away. So the next morning we had breakfast on the verandah, and I made a foot bath with peppermint and tea tree oils. Very nice, I'm sure that's helped.

We have a morning off, no ships! so do a little joinery with Rick. We make a raised board for under my bunk bed to enable me to slide my clothing boxes over a bar on the floor, which was annoying me. Fine job, and now it they glide in and out with ease.
I have my first run! We all set off round Bill's island, I get wet feet from looking at the view instead of the puddles, but it's really enjoyable. We can't get round our island as well though - the tide is a little too high and there is a great cornice of snow to crawl under so we stick to Bill's. The shop is warm from the sun, and we are enjoying a little after-run stretch when I spot Europa coming into the bay. What a glorious sight! she is a tall ship, built in 1911, and looks so much like a historic expedition ship coming into view under sail. We sit and watch on the verandah, wave at some figures on deck who wave back. They come and pick us up and we go over for a pre-vist beer. Later we go back again for our first barbecue of the season. The weather is wonderful, there is a minke whale in the bay, and a leopard seal swims round and round the ship watching us watching it. We have a lovely evening, great food and company. There is a bad flu bug on board though and we ho
pe we haven't caught it.

Next morning they pick us up and we go over to Jougla Point on Wienke Island. It's so close, and we've never been there yet! There is another gentoo colony there, and blue-eyed shags too. We have a great walk, see our island from a different perspective! and go over the low ridge to view the Peltier Channel. Slide down the snow slope back to sea level, filling our jackets and trousers with snow, and back to the ship for lunch. Afterwards they take us round the corner to another British Hut, Damoy. There used to be an airstrip on the snow here - the hut was built in 1975 and used up to 1993 to enable staff and stores to be flown south to Rothera when sea ice prevented ship access. After we have a look round they whizz us back home in a zodiac and we have a peaceful night in - all really tired by our day off!

satellite communications

Have heard from home that our post is starting to arrive! Joe, one of the camera crew, lent me his satellite phone and I went and stood outside in a blizzard yesterday and phoned home. Got through after a bit of wandering around trying to find a signal, wishing I'd put gloves on! It was such a bad line we spent the first couple of minutes shouting "can you hear me ... I can hear you..." at each other. I also had the problem of drowning out the penguins. Sorry Mum! not altogether satisfactory, but better than nothing ... maybe. Also left a message on Bill's answerphone - of course he was out!
Then out of the cloud and snow I saw the next ship arriving so back to work. Some of the staff from USA Palmer Station - our nearest neighbours - came too, on a day out. Brought us freshly baked bread! Finished up work at 8ish again - dinner and couple of beers and then more filming. 'The Lockroy staff relax in the evening' Rick reading, Rachel writing and me knitting!
This morning the next ship was in at 7am, so early porridge, the first crew were here at quarter to. But the wind changed direction, and my goodness there is still a lot of ice out there, and it all started arriving in our bay. It built up so quickly, it was amazing. Everyone was bundled back on board and they scooted off to clearer waters hopefully. The ice is beautiful though! We have a few more big bergs close by now - we have had one really large one since we have been here, which is gradually losing lumps. The giant petrels and cape petrels swim around it, the bottom of the berg brings up food from the sea floor.
Anyway, we shall wait and see what the morning brings. We did have another visit this afternoon, but they didn't stay long either, the wind is howling and it is nervy work watching to see where the ice goes next. The poor penguins are having such a tough time. We are pretty chilly too! yesterday was the coldest I have been yet in the shop. Early night tonight I think - it's been another long day!

A few more pictures

These are the last for now. Seems like they have all the necessary accoutrements for a cultured and comfortable life - a snowman, flag and nice sunny spot for a cup of tea!