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

Days 111 - 113

  the purple line is the coast we drew on at first call, the grey bit is where the ECDIS thinks the coast is

  Grease ice

  Pancake ice

  more pancake ice

  Halley is just around the corner

  A vertical mooring into the ice

  

  Sea Smoke, its a type of fog but the complete opposite. Fog forms by warm, moist air being cooled by the sea. Sea smoke forms by relatively warm moist air coming off the sea and being cooled by the much colder air.

Arrival at Halley was good, we got in a day before the itinery. All the moorings that we had left first call were usable so we did not have to do too much digging.

The cargo work has been going well, busy couple of days. Only a few more vehicles to load and we should be done

Today (Thursday) was pretty chilly -17°C all day with a howling wind.

Days 108-110

The weather over the last few days has been very settled, we are approx. 200miles from Halley, arrival will be Tues morning.

Life on board has been quiet and fairly routine.  The week alongside at Halley will be busy with cargo.

 capsized iceberg

 a fine day in the weddel sea

  thick first year pack ice

  the ice shelf

  another pic of lemaire channel with cruise ship

  more ice

 part of the mizen mast from Brunels ship the Great Britain

Days 106-108

We are now approximately half way to Halley, icebergs and bergy bits are becoming more common. The weather has been fantastic, it looks almost tropical at times.

This morning myself and the chief mate were joined by approximately 50 whales over the course of the watch; mostly humpbacks but also minke, sai and finn whales.

There is a ships webcam, image updated every half hour I think http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/images/webcams/rrses/index.php

Every 6 hours we submit the weather and position; http://www.sailwx.info/shiptrack/shipposition.phtml?call=ZDLS1

Days 102-105

We arrived at Stanley to unload some waste and load a new radar array for Halley. This ship is sailing this morning, heading straight to Halley. Initial ice images show no ice, so hopefully itll be a straight steam there and back, we should be back in Stanley in approximately three weeks.

Its amazing the difference a few days make. The weather is almost tropical, clear skies, warm and a calm sea with only a rolling swell gently rocking the ship, long may it last!

Days 98-101

Making our way towards the peninsula again, the weather has been uncomfortable. F8-10 on the nose, the pressure has been down to 945mb. The ship took a couple of big rolls, wrecked my cabin as well as the mess which was serving breakfast at the time.

In the protection of the peninsula, going through Lemaire channel. A few cruise ships about and even a yacht amongst all the ice.

The badminton tournament was interrupted last night due to a pod of 18-20 orcas hunting 3 humpback whales. The orcas seemed to be targeting the juvenile and trying to prevent it from coming to the surface, as well as trying to tire out the parents. After about an hour of the whales zigzagging and trying to get away from each other, they all disappeared out of sight.

We have turned northward, making the run across Drakes passage and back to Stanley.  Noon pos; 62° 3' S   057° 7'W

  Capsized Iceberg

  Lemaire Channel Approach

  Cruise ship in Lemaire

  Lemaire

  

  Cruise ship bottom of cliffs

Day 86- 98

  Peter 1 Island, only 800 people have stepped foot on it

  Pack ice, small floes

 the Ice shelf at cape flying fish

  Barograph off the chart

  DP screen, the green and purple circles are the positions from the seperate GPS'

  The caboose on the ice for the first time

  The fuel depot

  iStar caboose

  The sledges

The purpose of going to Cape flying fish was to input the iStar project. This was achieved, with the added bonus of being able to depot 160 drums of fuel. The significance of the fuel is that down here, the only way to transport it anywhere usually is by plane. To get one drum to where we made the depot a twin otter plane would burn 12.  The lads are now making their way across of the ice, pulling their landtrain of fuel, food, accomodation, etc to the wintering site. They will then fly out leaving all the equipment for next year.

The comms have finally disappeared, hence the late updates. We are down to an analog system called the Iridium, MF/HF radio and if we were to get into difficulty we have a button which will send out a distress via the COMPASS-SARSAT satellite. We have morning and evening comms with both Rothera base and the James Clark Ross, it is used primarily to send our met reports.

Sunday 29/1/12. Noon Position 70° 17’ S  104° 21’W, approximately 9000 miles away from Northern Ireland. The weather has got fairly rough with F8-10 winds on the nose.

Compass variation is over 40°E.

The initial spot that was chosen by the land team was deemed unsuitable by us because there was 15miles of fast ice to break through in order to get there. The ice was fairly thick and a test session of 6 hours resulted in us making 0.5miles through it.

The next spot had us breaking a channel of over 2miles to get to the ice shelf, this was achieved in 12 hours then a day was spent alongside checking out the ice and ramp leading up to the shelf. It was deemed as a possibility but it would have required a lot of work to make it usable.

We steamed around to another spot because the ice had all been blown away, the weather picked up so the ship sat in DP waiting for the weather to improve. After a couple of days we finally got alongside, the lads got ashore with their ground penetrating radar and assessed the shelf. It turned out to be solid with no cravasses. They made a depot site 7km inland, now it was up to us to get everything there.

After 1.5 days of offloading, the ship was empty and everything was done. The 4 iStar lads are now making their way further inland and we are heading back to the Faulklands