Day 85

Arrived at Rothera this morning, we had some cargo to offload and some waste to load.
  In the afternoon I walked up to the base for a cuppa then went out in the FRC with the chief mate.  Rothera base is completly different to Halley, there are 6 or 7 different buildings, a runway with aircraft hangar, a dive/boat centre and its mostly rock, surrounded by snow covered mountains.

We are now heading towards Pine Island glacier to input the Istar project. It is approx. 1000 miles.  The Istar project is completly new for BAS and it is in a brand new area of operations.  The project is to place a team on the glacier and for them to set fuel dumps. The project is for 4 years, each year the living accommodation, etc will be winterised and left for the following years science.  The glacier itself is the biggest one in the world and is moving much faster than predicted, the scientists want to investigate the reasoning behind this.

The ice is thick down there, this ship has never been down that far. It is new terrirtory for the ship and crew. Hopefully we can find a spot to land the people and equipment but we wont know for sure until we are down that far.

There is a chance that we will lose all sat comms for 10 days or so, if I dont update the blog for a while, thats why, no need to worry!

Day 84

  View from the office

  More views

  Iceberg

  Shacks sister

  Two Shacks

  HMS Protector

Last night was going to be a nice quiet watch in calm seas. A ship appears on the horizon but not AIS, I recognised the profile of her, exactly the same as ours. It turned out to be HMS Protector ship, the Shacks sister ship. She came alongside for photos and exchanging of information on the ice.

After the bridge cleared of people, we began to steam between some of the islands and saw a few minke whales feeding.

This morning, we were breaking ice and the visibility was not great, sea state has been slight.

Noon position; 65° 28’S  066° 10’ W

Day 83

  Neptunes Bellows (approach to Deception Is.)

  The Shack and Cruise ship in Whalers Bay

  Steam on beach from volcanic activity

  Old tanks used for whale oil

  Part of the British base

  Inside base

  More of the base

  Spanish base

  The Shack and Humbers

Arrived in Deception this morning, two cruise ships and two yachts were also there.  Our first stop was to the old British base for a small clean up task. The base was abandoned in the late 60s due to an eruption which buried most of it. A whaling station also stood in the same spot, see photos below.

The next stop was further into Deception, to check on the remains of an old Chilean base. We also found a hot spring, so went for a bit of a dip, after a swim in the 0°C sea.

Next stop Rothera to collect 45m³ of fuel.

Day 81 + 82

The weather has been relatively good with only a moderate swell running.  I’m back on deck during the morning watch, a bit of tidying and splicing. 

We have crossed the Antarctic convergence again, air and sea temperatures both approx. 1° C.  In the morning, the ship will be arriving in Deception island for a small clean up task. The island is the flooded crater of a volcano.

Days 79 + 80

I managed to get another wee day trip in around the island.

  The wilds of the Falklands

  Goosegreen

  Goosegreen school

We have let go lines at FIPASS and heading out to sea, we will be heading across Drakes passage, beside Cape Horn. The weather forecast is looking ‘not horrendous’ as the 2^nd mate put it. Im back on four hour watches, 8-12 with the 3rd mate, until we are breaking ice then it'll be 12s

Day 78

The other BAS ship has been in Stanley for a few days the James Clark Ross, we have gone alongside side her this evening to make crew change easier, the new crew are all on and half the old crew is leaving in the morning with the rest leaving on Saturday.

We are leaving for Rothera (Adelaide Island) on Saturday evening; it will take approximately 4 days.

Days 75, 76, 77

  suspension bridge

  the jeep 

A couple of quiet days, both at anchor and alongside. We went out of the harbour to test some of the DP sensors. This involved dropping the sensor poles through the bottom of the ship, then taking a beacon in the FRC and stand off the Shack in various locations, to check the equipment on board gets a return.

On Wednesday I got a day off and with the three istar lads we set off in a Land Cruiser around the eastern island.

We went to see some of the sights, the most southern suspension bridge in the world (see above) and a few of the strategic places in the war.  Outside of Stanley there is nothing but farms and wilderness, very few settlements and the roads are gravel tracks.  There still exists quite a lot of minefields but they are clearly marked with fences and signs.

Days 73+74

The ship is alongside the dock, called the FIPASS. It was originally built by the military as a temporary dock 30 years ago, it is a series of barges connected together. The dock is only big enough for a couple of ships at a time.

Had a nice wee walk around the town of Stanley.  Its a really interesting and beautiful place with lots of history. There are a few wrecks visible in the harbour, the best preserved being the Lady Elizabeth, a late 1800s tallship.

We’ve been moved off the FIPASS for a day while a small expedition cruise ship goes alongside to take on fuel and other supplies.

 Alongside FIPASS 

  Sunrise

  Stanley

  Stanley

  At anchor

  At Anchor

Days 70,71 and 72

Beautiful weather all day until the last stop, 80mph winds and snow. We got the RIBs onboard and headed to sea.

Underway and making way northward towards the Falklands. Force 8 winds on the port bow for a day and a half, sleeping is difficult but people are happy to be heading to the Falklands as most of the crew are getting off on leave.

Arrival at Port Stanley this morning. Tied up and immediately began offloading.

I’m nightwatchman for the next few days, shift starts at 1900-0700. In the morning I’m heading into town and hopefully to the swimming pool.

Day 69

  Signy base and Shack

  The Shack

  Elephant Seals at the base

  More Elephant seals

  Elephant seals on jetty

  Fur Seal

  Chinstrap penguin and chick

We got onto Signy island at 2100 last night. On the approach, I first heard, then saw and finally smelt the 50 or so teenage elephant seals that had also made the base their home.  We took a walk to look at the ship and the surrounding area, trying to avoid the fur seals.

Signy base is a small summer base, with 6 permanent staff. The main science done there is penguin/seal tagging and studying the mosses.

This morning we walked from Signy base, over the island to another base. It was great to stretch the legs and get onto some rock again.

We have a couple more cargo stops around the island today then heading for Stanley tonight, ETA Faulklands, Friday.

Day 68

  view from Cape Geddes

  the 'beach'

 penguins

  penguins and seals

This morning was spent waiting for daylight to make the final approach into Cape Geddes.  Myself and the chief mate took one of the RIBs to the beach to collect the two scientists. The trip was approx a mile because this whole area is unchartered, with no idications of depths or rocks so we had to be cautious with the Shack and be extra vigilant with the RIB. We landed amongst thousands of penguins, both in and out of the water.

We are taking the scientists to Powell island so they can do a quick survey of the penguin population there, then its on to Signy this evening.

Day 67

  Diatomic layer

  Iceberg with black deposits, I've no idea how can happen.

Most of the watch was spent crunching through heavy ice again. The best guess is the prolonged period of easterly winds weve had has blown it all off the land as it is 2 or 3 year old ice. Its not that the ice is much thicker than the stuff we were breaking to Halley but it is much harder, the older the ice the more the salt and oxygen gets squezzed out of it, this has the effect of making it much more able to absorb impact, so its harder for the ship to break. We had resorted to slowing down, nudging into it then powering on to push the big chunks out of the way.

The way to measure the age of the sea ice is by looking at the diatomic layers in it. One band equals two years, two equals three, etc.

By the end of the watch we have broken out into open sea again.

Arriving in Cape Geddes tonight at 2100 local time (GMT -2) 

Days 65 + 66

Not too much happening. We hoped to be out of the thickest of the ice by now but it has got worse and we are crawling through every mile. Some of the floes are 12ft thick and they look like all the others that are 3 ft thick. Usually we would head towards the biggest patches of open water but as there isnt any we are just plodding along our course line and avoiding the worst bits, getting into small pools to try and maintain our momentum. When we hit a big piece, the ship comes to a complete stop, rises up then flops over to one side, the weight of the ship then smashes the ice.Our ETA at Signy will be tomorrow afternoon.

Signy island has a small summer base, the island itself used to have a sealing industry on it. The base studies mostly wildlife, seals, birds and moses. It is above the Antartic circle so therefore has little ice around it and it has exposed land and a bit of greenery.

On Monday night, the cadets, 3^rd mate and doctor are going to stay on base for the night.

Days 63 + 64

Back at sea, well chomping through the ice. I know its summer down here but I’ve never experienced winds of less than a knot, glorious sunshine and mirror like sea.

Today had been dull and overcast, with a bit of snow. The ice is quite thick and we are hoping to get through or else itll be a 1000mile detour.

We are heading for a small island called Signy to do some science and take out some waste.

Noon pos 5/1/12   68°15’ S    020° 3.8’ W.                                  

Night time will be back in the next few days, I havent missed it!

Days 61 + 62

  leaving creek 3

We are just finishing off the last of the cargo, its all vehicles today.

2 x skiddoos

2 x pisten bulleys

2 x snow quads

1 x digger

1 x crane

All lashed down and ready to depart in the morning, the ice is looking good except one small bit, hopefully it breaks up more so we can get through.

We went round to a penguin colony, where there are approximately 5000 emperor penguins, all with young.

I’m back on 12 hour watches again, mid night - midday

Days 58, 59 + 60

  Halley V

  Sign at Halley

  Halley VI

  The Dobson machine for Ozone measurement

  Snow tractor

Happy New Year!

More cargo work, over the past couple of days. We celebrated the new year with some mulled wine and the traditional eight rings of the ships bell at midnight, the first four rings done by the eldest person on board and the last four done by the youngest person on board (eight bells because it is the change of watch).

I spent the today looking round the bases, Halley V and the new Halley VI.  We also had a demonstration of the machine that is used to measure the thickness of the ozone layer, by the lead scientist.

For the summer season there is approximately 70 personell on base and in the winter that drops to a dozen or so. The winterers are mainly support staff, electricians, engineers, etc.

One of the reasons for moving to the new base is because there is a chance the piece of ice the old base is sat on will eventually break off and float away, also every year there is roughly 1.5m of snow accumulation so everything has to be either jacked up by 1.5m or continuously un buried and set on top. The new base is much easier to jack up and it is designed so it can be dragged to a new location.