On Christmas morning we very unusually opened up the base to take 25-30 kids (age 5 to 16) and a few parents for a tour of base. The group was in on Le Boreal which is a brand new ship that was built in Italy. Tommy and I volunteered to help Rob (the base commander) take them around and answer questions. We took an hour to show them what life is like here.

I then got onto Skype to talk to my family in Bermuda for an hour. With the bandwidth being so small we were each allowed to sign up for an hour long slot and everyone else was not to use the internet for the day except during their allotted time. It actually worked pretty well although at one point my calls were lasting for 30 seconds at a time! At least it didn’t rain or snow as any precipitation means our internet connection pretty much stops completely.

Alastair and I took some soup I had made over to the folks in the musuem who were working hard as there were three ships in on christmas eve and two on christmas day. Then we started in making Christmas dinner for 20 as the base commander who was going to make dinner went to bed sick for 36 hours. Alistair helped me a lot doing the dishes and making enormous amounts of yorkshire pudding.

Sam and Katie decorated the table beautifully with Sam also making a beautiful menu. Matt mech made up plates of pate and strawberry sorbet for starters.

At 1pm we were all to go for the annual swim in the bay however, only matt mech and myself were brave enough to go in. We went in seperately as he was waiting for me in the sauna and thought I had lost my bottle and I was waiting for him in the kitchen to come and get me.

Later in the afternoon we opened up presents with Tommy (being the youngest) passing them out to everyone. There is a lot of talented people on base with some beautiful pictures and drawings being given out.

As is tradition in my family we broke the gingerbread house and spent the afternoon eating all the sweets.

We had roast lamb, beef, turkey, potatoes, parsnips, carrots, brussel sprouts etc. With the beef I cut off the fat and silvery bits, tied it up with string and covered it in a breadcrumb herb crust. I made some stock for gravy with the parts I had cut off. The turkey is not on the bone as the BAS policy is not to send meat with bones down. I was a bit worried it would go dry so Alastair beat it flat for me then I filled one breast with olives and the other with blue cheese rolled them up and tied them with string. Then fried them in olive oil, butter and herbs until they were golden brown all over, poured some white wine in the pan and let the alchol evaporate. Then covered in tin foil and let it slow cook for an hour and half – much to my relief it came out not to dry. The carrots were cooked in white wine, olive oil, thyme and lemon juice in the oven.

For dessert we had traditional christmas pudding, christmas cake (made by the cook at government house in the Falklands and sent down to us), Pavlova (made by Ruth the government officers wife) and I made buche de noel (or death by chocolate log). The log was chocolate cake rolled up with a filling of baileys mousse and topped with royal icing and chocolate icing. We played the After Eight game where you have to get the chocolate from your forehead into your mouth without using your hands – resulting in lots of great facial expressions!

We all rolled into our beds in the wee hours of the morning over fed after another beautiful day in south georgia.

BTW almost all the photos in my christmas eve and day postings were taken by Alastair Wilson.

Yesterday truffles and christmas cookies were made ready for christmas eve and christmas day.

This morning the Fram came in and tried to tie up at the Jetty however it was gusting 45 knots so instead they anchored in the cove and I took the post office workers and Pat the government officer out in the jet boat. It was a little stressful in that just as I went to come alongside they announced on the intercom that if the guests wanted to look out the starboard windows they would see the South Georgia Government Harbour Launch coming alongside!

They left mid morning just as the next ship the Bremen came around Hope Point.

Katie who is in charge of the cheese board wanted only a 1/4 of a round of Brie out of the freezer so Tommy, her and I used a hacksaw to cut off what we wanted!

The forest sprouted secret santa presents.

The church lit up with candles for the service.

Hanseatic in the cove at anchor.

We joined in on the Hanseatic (cruise ship) christmas eve service and as a base sang the twelve days of christmas KEP style written by the Lelec Family of the yacht TevaKenui. Pat had changed the night before christmas to KEP style which I shall put up at some point along with pictures of us singing.

On the first day of Christmas my true sent to me…a penguin calling for me.

On the second day of Christmas my true love sent to me…two Antarctic terns and a penguin calling for me.

On the third day of Christmas my true love sent to me…three yacht exploring, two Antarctic terns and a penguin calling for me.

On the fourth day of Christmas my true love sent to me ….four friendly furries, three yacht exploring, two Antarctic terns and a penguin calling for me.

On the fifth day of Christmas my true love sent to me…five Carse House gins…. four friendly furries, three yacht exploring, two Antarctic terns and a penguin calling for me.

On the sixth day of Christmas my true love sent to me… six bodgers bodging… five Carse House gins…. four friendly furries, three yacht exploring, two Antarctic terns and a penguin calling for me.

On the seventh day of Christmas my true love sent to me… seven saunas steaming, six bodgers bodging… five Carse House gins…. four friendly furries, three yacht exploring, two Antarctic terns and a penguin calling for me.

On the eighth day of Christmas my true love sent to me… eight FIDS a-wintering , seven saunas steaming, six bodgers bodging… five Carse House gins…. four friendly furries, three yacht exploring, two Antarctic terns and a penguin calling for me.

On the ninth day of Christmas my true love sent to me… nine boaties jetting, eight FIDS a-wintering , seven saunas steaming, six bodgers bodging… five Carse House gins…. four friendly furries, three yacht exploring, two Antarctic terns and a penguin calling for me.

On the tenth day of Christmas my true love sent to me… ten flippers flapping, nine boaties jetting, eight FIDS a-wintering , seven saunas steaming, six bodgers bodging… five Carse House gins…. four friendly furries, three yacht exploring, two Antarctic terns and a penguin calling for me.

On the eleventh day of Christmas my true love sent to me… eleven Sheathbills strutting, ten flippers flapping, nine boaties jetting, eight FIDS a-wintering , seven saunas steaming, six bodgers bodging… five Carse House gins…. four friendly furries, three yacht exploring, two Antarctic terns and a penguin calling for me.

On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love sent to me… twelve weaners scratching, eleven Sheathbills strutting, ten flippers flapping, nine boaties jetting, eight FIDS a-wintering , seven saunas steaming, six bodgers bodging… five Carse House gins…. four friendly furries, three yacht exploring, two Antarctic terns and a penguin calling for me.

Translation
Carse House – one of the government officers house currently occupied by Pat and Sarah who have lived here for 18 years. Their gin and tonics have a large percentage of gin and a splash of tonic!

Weaners – baby elephant seals

FIDS – Falkland Island Dependency Survey (what BAS use to be) so a FID is one of us.

Bodger – a broom stick handle to keep the furries at a distance when required (not for hitting them)

After the service the ship included us in mulled wine and german stollen on the wharf so Jon and Rob picked up their instruments for an in promptu music session.

Matt is the other boating officer he came from HM Coastguard where he was a senior watch officer (search and rescue co-ordinator). He lives in Southampton, UK. After relief we had a lot of parts come in so were able to fix many things on the boats. Matt is fixing the exhaust seal on the mariner outboard.

This is the time lapse that I promised which was put together by Alastair Wilson. Enjoy.

Yesterday we weren’t able to pick up Pat and Sarah (government officer and postmistress) from Sorling which is on the Barff Peninsula. The conditions looked fine when we set out from KEP however, when we got to the far reaches of East Cumberland bay the swell and wind meant it wasn’t safe to do a beach landing. So they got another night of holidays and we returned to base with our tails between our legs! This morning the forecast was for miserable weather well it couldn’t have been more wrong so we set out at 8:30am and picked them up off the beach. Seeing as it was such a beautiful day we felt it was necessary to have a detour along the face of the Nordenskul glacier. The small amount of brash ice was good for training Alastair and Tommy about driving through it.

We returned to base and set about doing some maintenance on the RIB trailers and before long it was time for doc school (about fluids) followed by christmas drinks at Pat and Sarahs (south georgia gin and tonics), dinner (chinese) and more christmas decorations which went up in the bar. There are so many trees in the cupboard here that we decided to have a ‘forest’ instead of just one tree.

On Sunday a group of us Rob (BC), Alastair (beaker), Hugh (handyman), Jon (beaker), Theis (resident yachtie) and myself climbed 3320. The peak is unnamed so it is distiguished on the map from others by its height in feet. You can see the peak in the picture it is the furthest one on the right above our heads.

It is at the far extent of our travel area so we walked a total of 20.4km which is very hard going on the scree slopes. The walk from base takes you along the track – the furries were acting oddly and wanted to attack us as we walked by. Exit Grytviken on the track up to Gull Lake than alongside the lake on the springy mossy ground and up the stream bed past the little lake at the west base of Brown Mountain. From there across the top end of junction valley and onto the scree slopes. Past the Echo pass turn off and up more scree slopes with a large waterfall. At the top of this little hill is Glacier Col which has the remanents of a large glacier which is melting fast into a large torrent of glacier melt water rushing down a waterfall that has spread out across a wide area.

Walking over the glacier morraines is much nicer than the large scree as is walking over some of the snow patches. At this point you reach the top of the Col at 486m and descend into a valley with the top of Lyell Glacier on your right side and Lyell lake.

View of the peak from the top of Glacier Col.

The traversing of the lower slopes of the 3320 mountain was a killer on the knees and seemed to go on forever, as to get to the top requires approaching from the south side of the moutain. From then on it is some serious scrambling on rotten rock requiring use of hand holds to pull yourself up the moutain all 800m of it!

The last part to the summit requires climbing very carefully up a small crack see below picture.

At this point our party split into two as one person didn’t feel comfortable about getting up the last 5 meters so we left three to exit the summit down another gully while we turned around and went down the one we had come up. The below is a panaroma half way down the moutain (by Alastair).

The ”expedition’ took 10.5 hours with a few short breaks and we climbed about 1700m or 5577feet. It was very windy at times so we did get buffeted around and unless down jackets were donned it got chilly during the stops. The majority of the time was taken on the descent as the ground was steep and the rock very rotten so we needed to go slowly and pick our way. At some points we were on our butts. I lost the bottoms out of yet another set of trousers – so have a bit of sewing to do.

We got back to Grytviken and were invited onto Wanderer III the local yacht for cake and tea and this became pasta which was exactly what the Dr. ordered. We didn’t get back to station until 10pm when we fell into our beds. Not a bad Sunday.

Being a bit lazy with the post today! However, we don’t have many beautiful sunsets at the moment so thought I would post this one that we had last weekend. The mountain is Brown Mountain which is part of the half marathon course. The half marathon is planned for February so the training will soon start!

Have a great weekend.

This afternoon we went over to one of the most southern church in the world and put up the christmas decorations. The museum folks made mulled wine, mince pies, sausage rolls, brownies and blackberry pies to entice us over. The building was pre built in Norway and erected by whalers in 1913 managed by Carl Larsen (there is a bust of him in the church). It is a Norwegian Lutheran Church of the Church of Norway. It was consecrated on christmas day 1913 and in 1922, a funeral service for Sir Ernest Shackleton was conducted here before his burial in the church cemetery the other side of King Edward Cove.

Alastair did a grand job of sweeping up the inevitable bits of tinsel at the end.

Alastair put his camera up in the gallery and made a time lapse movie which I shall post up on the site when it is fully put together.

This is a picture of Hugh the museum caretaker who had all the decorations ready for us to put up. He is a star the other day he noticed I had a flat tire on my bike and before I had a chance to fix it after work he had done it as well as oiling the chain.

A practical fake tree – I do miss the smell of a real one though!

Before going across to the church I introduced the base to a Perrin family tradition of making a gingerbread house. There was quite a bit of enjoyment and people on a sugar high.

Tommy and Alastair weren’t around to make it so we left a wall for them to decorate. They put a whale on the wall out of smarties, had a pig (meant to be a cat) and some flowers in a pot.

Scrub out is on Friday afternoon and it is when the whole base is fully cleaned. We get different tasks each week – last week I did the bins and this week the kitchen. The bins involves using the telehandler to carry all the dustbins to the end of station where the waste room is.

In the waste room there is a bailer for the cardboard, plastic etc. and a chipper for the glass.

The glass looks like this when it comes out

The cardboard is put in large bags and when they are full they are put in a container for storage until last call (in March/April). The garbage when it is thrown out is washed as it would really smell in the container if we didn’t 🙂

Anyways after the garbage bin excitement Tommy and I went for a great walk up a waterfall.

It was a stunning walk – with the recent snow/rain and with it being so very warm (tshirt weather) the waterfall was in full flow. We walked in the water climbing up onto the plateau above base. At some points the river gets very narrow and there are also lots of pools which would be great to swim in. We found a few places to bivvy but tonight it is meant to rain/snow so we decided not tonight. Tomorrow is christmas decoration time at the church.

Furry pups are popping out all over the place at the moment. Females give birth to a single pup between mid-November and late December. I witnessed a female giving birth on one of my evening walks just off the track to Grytviken last week. This picture is of a pup which is a few days old they come out dark brown, nearly black in color. 1 in 1000 are blond.

The pups are weaned after about four months. This pup was on its own as its mother has gone out to sea to forage for primarily krill. In between these foraging trips, they are ashore for one to several days to nurse their pups. Survival of suckling pups is low in years when krill abundance near a colony is insufficient to allow lactating females to forage effectively. This occurred in South Georgia two years ago when the currents meant that krill was in very low densities around the island.

The diving ability of pups substantially improves during the first few months of life, and by about four months old their diving patterns are similar to those of adult females. The deepest recorded dive of an adult was 590 feet deep and they can hold their breaths for up to 10 minutes.