The
ship is arriving saturday morning at Bird Island. We are going there to
delivery cargo and personnel as well as taking out waste. This will be done via
the ships small inflatable boats and cargo tender (Tula). The island itself
does not provide much shelter from the weather but thankfully the conditions
are forecasted to be ideal (we are currently in between two low pressure
systems). Another difficulty with Bird Island is the abundance of kelp which
grows in the channel, this is causes minor difficulty for small inflatables as
they are outboard motor propelled but for the larger cargo tender (which is
jet drive) the kelp can stop her in her tracks. To mitigate against this
happening, the inflatables will clear a path in the kelp using their propellers.
We
had an oil prevention drill this morning, this is a mandatory requirement for
all vessels who will go south of 60° and were also carrying extra oil
prevention equipment for the Ronne shelf Expedition so it gave everybody a
chance to become familiar with this kit.
These
are a couple of photos of the sunset last night and a picture of the ECDIS
(Electionic Chart and Display Information System). It shows that the electronic world of navigation hasnt
quite reached this far yet as the blue bits are places where there are no
electronic charts available, thats why on this ship we still navigate with
paper charts, having the electronic only as back up
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