Since we got here the beaches have been heaving with elephant seals (the name a result of its size and large proboscis of the males) but they are starting to disperse. The pups have ballooned into weeners (spelling?) which with their large eyes are very cute despite their farting! The large bulls make roaring sounds especially when they are in the middle of a fight also when they most resemble sumo wrestlers!

For more on the elephant seals click here.

Sunday was again a morning for some baking so back by popular demand I made english muffins. Also some ginger chocolate cookies which got devoured quickly – due to the large amounts of chocolate.

Last week Rob (the BC) took a lot of time and made pain au chocolate which was incredibly tasty. It did mean I had to walk an extra hour that evening to walk it all off!

Hodges above the church at Grytviken – the route up is right up the scree slope.

Duse the last one rises above Base picture taken from Brown mountain

Directly above my head is a snow field coming down from Narval which is what we bum slid down! The peak in the far right of the picture is the second Petrel.

1700m or so of height climb, seven summits and 8 hours later we completed the seven summits challenge on saturday. Out of the 6 people who did it 3 have been at KEP for 2 years and are leaving on Monday.

This is a picture of us on the summit of the last mountain Mt Duse. In the picture are myself, Rob (the new BC), Thies (who lives on the yacht Wanderer III), Jon (the predator scientist – outgoing), Richy (the outgoing electrician) and Luke (outgoing fisheries scientist).

The route was a total of 14km involving some scrambling, ridge walking, bum sliding (down a few snowy patches), post hole digging through some small snow banks and being pushed over by 35 knot gusts. We started with Orca (277m), Hodges (605m) Petrels (two peaks one 632m the other 620m), Narval (about 650m), Brown (332m) and last Duse (507m).

Last week I spent a lot of time designing a SAR unit to allow us to pick up an injured patient by boat and get them back to base in a stretcher inside the cab of the jet boat. Sounds like an easy thing but actually as with anything to do with boats it is not. We started by taking apart a stretcher (see above) which had runners on it allowing it to be used on snow. Tommy then cut it apart and rewelded it together into a back board (allowing us to immobilise a patient with a potential c-spine injury) that fits through the jet boat door and also fits into the pulk that is used for transport on scree, snow and on the RIB from the beach.

Below is Tommy with the finished product – I added 8 handles which I sewed on made of ABS plumbing pipe and climbing webbing to allow the backboard to be easily picked up.

Nothing adventurous today for the blog as people seem to want to know about some everyday things. We did have an amazing day weather wise on base though – started with a light drizzle, then snow, then sleet, hail, thunder, lightening, sun and this evening was absolutely stunning with the evening light sparkling on the cove.

Tommy and I went for a great walk up a waterfall which was a really wonderful find and got back late for dinner after scrub out (more on that later).

Anyways back to the normal things! The picture at the top is our gym in the boatshed. I use it every lunch time to lift some light weights it is amazing how different my strength is after only a month and a bit. On a beautiful day I open up the doors and look out on the cove and Grytiviken. There is a brand new rowing machine, a bike (which is not good at all), a cross trainer, a large weight lifting set up which can in its many configurations basically exercise all the muscles and a punch bag.

On wednesday Richie the outgoing electrician (he has been here for 25 months) took up the Hodges Challenge. The course is from the back door of the museum at Grytviken to the summit 607m and back to the museum. The record was set in 1998 by a soldier based at KEP who summited in 31 minutes and did the return trip in 50 minutes. Richie was a minute slower on the way up however, he took 5 minutes less to descend. Doing the return trip in a stunning 46 minutes. This is an amazing feat to be able to run down the scree slop at that pace without being hurt badly on a fall. Next challenge for Richie when he leaves here – on monday morning – is the london marathon.

Picture by Alastair Wilson

Every three month at high water we pull Pipit and Prion (the jet boats) out of the water and into the shed one at a time over night. This allows us to do the 3 monthly jet unit services, power wash the bottom, change anodes etc. It is a bit of a process and the boats look massive when they are out – filling the whole boatshed. We use the telehandler and a large steel cable to pull them clear of the water on their custom made trailers.

This is a 10 minute movie Matt put together. Showing off our little fleet of RIBs and jetboats with some cuddly nature footage as well.

In 1775 when James Cook landed on the Island he noted the endemic South Georgia Pintail pictured above. I took this along the track to Grytviken – there are over 2000 living on the island. They are found on the northern coast and the western third of the south coast the rest of the south coast doesn’t have a topography that encourages them. They are found in the many freshwater pools and streams fringed by tussock grassland in seal wallows and poorly drained land next to wetlands and melting snow, as well as on the coast.

They are omnivores feeding on vegetation (marine and freshwater algae), foraging in the intertidal zone for invertebrates (freshwater shrimp, clams, nematodes, snails) and sometimes they even scavenge at seal carcasses like skuas or giant petrels.

They breed in solitary pairs (mate for life) with nests hidden in the tussock grass during a long breeding season from late October to early March. Cleverly when returning to the nest they land away from it getting to it by creeping through the undergrowth so as not to encourage predatory birds. The eggs are small pale cinnamon pink eggs and they lay between 3 to 5. The introduced rats do eat their eggs along with the skuas.

Saturday night is special for dinner on base we tend to have 3 course meals. Last night Tommy and Matt H decided to do a British Pub theme. We had a choice of meals with a starter of soup or shrimp cocktail, maincourse of fish and chips, beef and ale pie or mixed grill and a dessert of jam rolly polly or bread and butter pudding.

Everyone put effort (except me 🙂 into wearing fancy dress for the occassion and afterwards there was a pub quiz which our team came last in!

Hope you all have a great weekend.