Hello Everyone, Captain Bob here again.
This week has been about closing down and saying goodbye. Since I last wrote, we have closed two British Antarctic Survey bases for the winter, and all of our various visitors have now finished their work and gone home. Having left the BAS base at Rothera, we headed north intending to have a relatively straightforward trip through the calm waters of the sheltered Crystal Sound and the beautiful Lemaire Channel. However, once more the Antarctic made us change our plans. I sent one of our helicopters ahead of the ship to have a look how much ice was in the channel and the returning news wasn’t good. The channel was completely full of ice and would be impossible to get through. This now meant that we had to go the long way round, into the open ocean and face the wrath of the worst the Antarctic can throw at us. Having well and truly battened down the hatches, we set off. What followed were two very challenging days. At one point, we were in a hurricane strength wind at 65 mph, which is force 12.
30 ft waves coming over the bow of the ship
I have to say, there weren’t many happy faces on board. The doctor sent several people to bed as they had very bad seasickness, and a few had bumps and scrapes from falling into things. The one thing that performed perfectly was the ship and despite a lot of creaking and being thrown around by the sea, we got through in one piece. HMS Endurance is a sturdy ship, well able to handle the conditions of the Antarctic.
Unlikely iceberg mates. A Fur seal and a Crabeater seal share a small iceberg together
We ducked through the top of the peninsula to head south towards our next goal, Mount Haddington. As you may remember, 2 months ago, we put a team from BAS on the top of this 6000ft Mountain so that they could drill down into the ice to collect samples that will look back into time to tell them how the climate has changed. BAS had managed to get to the bottom of the ice earlier than expected so were all ready and raring to get off when we arrived. We had prayed for good weather, and were blessed with a clear day, and minimal wind. Since we were last here, most of the sea ice had melted and so we were able to get a lot nearer and so our two helicopters had a considerably shorter distance to travel.
Load lifting over the ice at Mount Haddington
The upshot was that we achieved three days work in one, and I was immensely proud of how hard my team worked to get it all done with such professionalism. I called an impromptu “clear lower deck” to get everyone out on the flight deck to tell them what a great job they had done and bought everyone a beer to say thank you.
A rather cold Capt Bob on the Flight deck
As the sun set in the bay, it was a beautiful sight and one of the happiest days so far for a sentimental Captain.
Sunset over Mount Haddington
Having shut down one base, it was onto the next. This time, on Signy Island in the South Orkney, 400 miles to the north. This base has been studying the 200,000 Chinstrap and Adelie penguins that live there with them, and trying to understand why some of the chicks do not survive each year. It’s very sad, but these scientists hope to understand why it happens to help future generations of Signy penguins. In order to get the base all packed up and off before the weather turned against us, we put a team of Royal Marines in, and the helicopters bought off all the stores and equipment again.
Endurance reflected in the visor of Lt Matt Boulind whilst load lifting.
The base at Signy is not only inhabited by the British Antarctic Survey team, but a group of male elephant seals. They have taken over the ground outside the buildings, having come ashore to moult. They are huge creatures and have the most offensive breath of anything I have even met! They are generally very grumpy, moulting is very itchy for them, and they regularly have tussles with each other.
Two Male Elephant seals jousting on Signy Island
The team had to be careful not to upset them, and they really did not like the helicopter waking them up. But, once more, the ships company worked like clockwork and everything was packed away in 2 days.
Just as we thought all the excitement was over, we had a bit of a flood in one of the storage holds. It was all hands to the buckets to get rid of all the water so that the engineers could find the cause. The problem was quickly repaired and showed to me how efficient and speedy the response of the ships company was as we were back on our way very quickly.
Ships Company bailing up water from the hold
So, that’s it for this year for the support we give to BAS, but we still have a short workperod in the South Shetlands to come. We have achieved a huge amount and looking back over my blogs really takes my breath away. We have had some interesting visitors, from the BBC teams, to Admiral Stanhope, Viv James, and all of the teams from the British Antarctic Survey. We are now heading up towards Chile, and are really excited about spending time in this beautiful part of the world.
The size of the ice berg is only clear when we put the ship next to them
As we sail north in unusually flat sea, we have been treated to an acrobatic display by four Peale’s dolphins who were playing in the bow wave at the front of the ship. They say it’s the equivalent of surfing if you are a dolphin, and it was tremendous to see them having so much fun with us. They spent a good hour with us before disappearing into the open ocean again.
A Peale’s dolphin leaps majestically out of the water with the red hull of the ship reflected in the background.
I will tell you all about Chile next time I write.
Tight lines.
Capt Bob