| Ship's Diary |
| During her time at sea, HMS Endurance will be sending back regular diaries to keep us all up to date with what is happening on this deployment. Use the links below to read extracts from the diary. |
| Grytviken 30 Nov-1 Dec |
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A short 4 days after leaving the Falklands, HMS Endurance reached South Georgia. The first view for approximately a third of the Ships Company was breathtaking. Snow capped mountains against a sky patchworked with cloud and brilliant blue, greeted the ship as she sailed into Cumberland bay and up to Grtyviken itself. One of 4 deserted whaling stations (Leith, Stromness, and Husvik being the other 3) on South Georgia, Grytviken is also the site of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s grave, and is home to a couple who having sailed around the Southern ocean, settled there in the early 1990s and are the sole permanent inhabitants. It is also currently populated by approximately 40 Morrisons employees who are in the process of pulling down the whaling station and making safe the asbestos therein. At King Edward Point (KEP), the site of the deepwater jetty and approximately 1 km from Grytviken itself is the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) station, currently occupied by about 10 BAS personnel.
As we approached Grytviken the survey motor boats (SMBs) were launched so that the surveying work could begin, some slightly bumpy seas meaning that this took longer than anticipated and that we arrived alongside finally at approximately 2030. In the gathering dusk the ships company set about unloading the BAS stores we had transferred from the UK, including craning out the forklift truck we had stored in the forward hold from the Falkland Islands, to be used in the dismantling of the whaling station.
Back at sea again we disembarked another SMB and set to surveying Possession Bay. HMS Endurance’s tasking over the next couple of years is one by one to survey the bays and inlets that cruise ships visiting South Georgia will use. The SMBs are needed to survey the bays, as they are too shallow for Endurance to safely survey herself. The ship will survey part of the coastline that will form a circular ‘safe’ survey route for vessels around the island. The BSES party was disembarked by sea boat, into Husvik, and their stores transferred by helo.
Wednesday saw the first of the seal counters along with BAS scientist, Dirk Briggs , landed ashore in Husvik, for a trial of the seal counting technique. Some of the BSES group had volunteered to assist and a party of 7 set off along the beach for some high ground vantage point from which to photograph the beach. The fur seals are coming ashore now as their breeding season to first of all give birth, and then mate again.
Poorer weather (particularly visibility) for the rest of the week meant that the seal counting was put on hold. The SMB and ship surveying has gone well, with daily SMB crew changes, by sea boat or helo, dependant on the vicinity of the ship to Possession Bay, the site of the SMB survey. We are currently on target for completion of our Work Period 1 tasking as anticipated. |
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