Days 197 - 206

 It has been a busy week, drills and sorting out safety equipment. Saturday 19^th , we have called into Madeira to take on some fuel. On arrival we were told by the port authority to graffiti a wall in the port with the ships name, the 3^rd mate and I set about the task................................................

Next stop, Immingham. ETA 2130 26/5/12

Days 195-197

 Well we are back in the northern hemisphere. Unfortunately we will be in the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ or doldrums) for a few days.

The ITCZ is the area on the globe where the winds from the two hemispheres converge, lots of cloud, torrential rain, thunderstorms and clouds.

The top pic is a screen shot from the x-band radar just as we crossed the line, the yellow clutter on the screen is rain passing through. The blue is a trails feature, showing where the rain was.

The second pic is the current view from my porthole, a wee bit different from a few days ago!

days 189-194

We are making good progress northward. Pos 15° S  035° W, back in the northern hemisphere in a few days. 

The sea state has been slight with a long swell, giving the ship a slight roll. There have been a few big showers but it is hot, night and day. Sea temp is 28°C, air in the day is +30°C and at night it is 28°. This ship being an ice class vessel, the air con system isn’t that great but the odd cold beer helps.

Days 184-188

 We set sail as planned on Saturday evening and turned to start heading towards the UK.

The weather has been settled, with a low swell and slight sea. I’ve been kept busy with astro nav and learning COLREGs.

Current location is 40° S 50° W, approximately 400miles off the coast of Argentina, in the next 5000 miles we only have to alter course twice!

 It has been a busy couple of weeks; we have finished our charter work and loaded the ship to head back to the UK.  We received a tsunami warning whilst North of the Falklands, fortunately the ship was in deep enough water not to notice anything.

The ship is completely full, we are carrying a lot of recycling waste, cranes, skidoos, boats as well as ice core samples, rock samples and an aquarium full of live samples. Pics to follow.

The ship sails on Saturday afternoon; the passage is scheduled to take 30 days. Roll on the heat of the tropics!

Days 165-167

Heading north from Rothera, back up through Lemaire channel and Neumayer, ETA Stanley Tuesday night. Then on Sunday night we learn from HMS Protector there is a Brazilian navy ice ship stuck in the ice, 70miles from our location. We altered course and started to make our way towards the vessel. Conditions were not particularly great, F9 on the starboard bow causing a lot of sea spray that froze in mid air before accumulating on the bridge windows and f’c’sle.  Having reached her on Sunday night we escorted her back through the ice and into open water, now we are back on track to Stanley ETA Thursday morning.

Days 160-164

We arrived at Rothera and discharged some cargo before slow steaming over night to Stonnington base. The wind was fairly strong, F7/8 then as we got closer to land it began to pick up to a steady F12 (max of 80kts). This was mostly katabatic winds (cold air mass coming off the mountains) and as a result it was too rough to launch the RIBs, back to Rothera.

We finished discharging at Rothera and some of us were taken down a crevass (see pics)

The ship left Rothera on Friday morning and headed back to Stonnington and Horseshoe. We went there to undertake a health and safety assessment of the old bases. The base at Horseshoe is 1950s and it has been left exactly as it was then.

  View of Rothera and surroundings

  

  Crevass

  

  natural light (7m below surface)

  The Shack @ Horseshoe

  Dog kennel @ Horseshoe

  Cabin

  Tins of food

  Shelves in kitchen

Days 155-159

The trip across Drakes passage wasn’t too bad after all, we had some wind force 11 but it only lasted a day or so. Te trip down the peninsula has been as amazing as always, lots of whales doing aerials and showing their tails.

We took a trip into the Ukranian base called Vernadsky to remove some waste and to the museum base of Wordie to do the same, we are currently making our way down to Rothera in big seas and thick snow.

 Mountains

  

  Vernadsky base

  Vaernadsky bar

  100ft yacht

  Wordie galley

  Wordie base

  

Days 136-155

Thursday 29^th. Over the last couple of weeks we have been dodging bad weather, in and out of Stanley a couple of times and getting the work done.

I have been learning how to use the DP system on board. It uses reference systems e.g. GPS, beacons on the seafloor, etc to maintain the ships position within a couple of meters in most weather conditions. As well as the references the ‘desk’ receives input from wind sensors, heave, pitch, roll sensors and gyro compasses. It is amazing what the system can do, once it has built up a model of the situation it can calculate which heading will require the least amount of engine power to maintain. The part I found strange is you don’t have to be pointing in the direction you want to go, the ship can point and move in any direction, it will even spin on the spot whilst moving.  You can also take the controls in manual DP, the ship is then controlled via the joystick.

The ship sails this evening for Rothera to deliver the last of their cargo before winter and to collect approximately 20 FIDs.

The forecast for Drake’s Passage doesn’t look great.

Days 130-135

We set sail on Tuesday morning to head to the survey area. The weather has been mostly in our favor with only a few stoppages in the work.

The work is fairly repetitive but it is a great opportunity to see another side of the industry.

Another advantage is the entire ship is on 24 hour operation, including the galley. This means when I finish watch at midnight I can have another full dinner before going to sleep.

The amount of time we are on this job is unknown as it is very weather dependent.

Day 124-129

We have been alongside in Stanley for a week, discharging the cargo from Halley and mobilising for the charter.

All the FIDs have gone back to the UK, along with one of the engineering cadets and we have gained 7 persons from a mixture of companies to do this job.

I’ve been busy working on deck, greasing hinges, cleaning scuppers (drains from deck to over the side), being bowman in the FRC and doing fire watches.

A fire watch is required whenever we are cutting or welding on deck, it involves one person on deck with a fire extinguisher and one person directly under the deck where the work is taking place, making sure no fires are started by sparks or the residual heat from the work doesn’t melt something below decks, causing a small fire.

Today we’ve been out testing all the equipment in preparation for sailing on Monday evening.

The weather has been changeable, from glorious sunshine to heavy rain with F7 winds.

days 121-123

We didn’t manage to get into Signy before nightfall due to the slow navigation through the ice. We went straight to the site of the scientific glider and spent the day doing some expanding box plots on DP, that was unsuccessful. The other BAS ship, JCR will pick up the glider during the week. 

The trip from the Southern Orkneys to the Faulklands has been fairly uneventful, although the ship has been in thick fog for the entire time, sea state has been slight /moderate.

We will be alongside in Stanley for 6 days, taking on bunkers (fuel), discharging the waste from Halley and mobilising for the charter.

The ship will be on charter for approximately 3 weeks, in a location North of the Faulklands, taking seabed samples.

It will be a glimpse into the work that this ship undertakes in the North sea in the summer, something cadets don’t normally get to experience and I’ll be able to start logging time on the DP desk.

Day 120

Well I spoke too soon about being clear of the ice, myself and the 2^nd mate spent most of the watch this morning breaking and dodging ice in the dark, good craic. You can only see the ice that is in the spotlights so its a case of constantly scanning and looking at the radar. It has calmed the swell down which is good.

The plan is to get to Signy before dark so we can get a run ashore, see some seals.

Day 119

We have finally got clear of the ice and in open water once again. The weather has got pretty bad with wind and swell on the nose.

Our passage to Stanley has now got a slight detour to Signy Island. A floating scientific instrument has stopped working so we are to recover it.

Days 116-118

We finished loading cargo and passengers on Sunday, around 1600.

Goodbye Halley! There has been some ice but no thick pack as such, we are now in open water and steaming straight for the Faulklands with 40 FIDs on board, mostly construction workers.

Once at the Faulklands it’ll be unloading all the Halley cargo and mobilising for our charter.

 White out

 Cold!

 and the difference a day makes

 goodbye to 24 hours of daylight

 GPS is much easier

Days 114-115

Friday was spent lashing all the deck cargo, mostly vehicles. The weather was glorious. We had the new Halley winterers on board for dinner, as their last touch of the outside world before the long winter.

Today the weather is terrible again, a blizzard and its freezing! We are just tidying up on deck and in the holds in preparation for sailing, not sure when that is but it’ll be in the next few days.

 A nodwell

  tracked quad

 2x snocats