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.