As the boat was in the shed for the 1000 hour jet unit service I also changed out the AIS Antennae as I think that may be contributing to the problem with the AIS as the outer jacket of the coax was nicked slightly. So I used a trick an electrician friend of mine taught me. Remove the inner wire/plastic and put a 3mm line through the center then put the plastic cover back on and tape it all together. This meant I could mouse out the old antennae and only remove two panels of the liner in the cab.

My lunch time was over at the hydro again in the sun looking out across the bay. What a stunning sunny day.

Matt was on boat driving duty so he spent the morning taking the government officers to krill boats, reefers and Antarctic Bay to leave off Andy. As you can see it was a stunning day for a bit of boating.

The internal anode in the jet unit needed changing and the best way is to remove the screen from the hull and then reach up inside and swap with a new one.

The movie tonight was Quantum of Solace. When ever we have Bond on most people on station come to watch it is a pretty safe choice for the movie chooser!

This morning dawned flat calm and clear and seeing as the high tide was at a sensible time we pulled Pipit out of the water for her jet unit service and a bunch of other small jobs. However, we haven’t even started them as Prion had some issues that needed to be resolved first. Matt had to redo the raw water strainer join which was leaking and while doing that found that the raw water pump is in need of a rebuild. Meantime Tommy fixed the bilge alarm and due to fixing that solved the AIS GPS conflict inadvertantly!

As the spring lines at the dock had some major wear on the shackles I ended up making new ones.

We covered the RIBs which we had to kick out of the shed to fit the jet boat in – as you can see it was a clear, sunny day. At lunch time I put a packed lunch in my bag and headed to the hydro where I sat on the shore and surveyed the beautiful calm cove.

Tomorrow it will be a day of servicing the jet units and pulling apart the liner of the boat to install a new AIS antennae. In the meantime it is time to start a new book I am trying to decide between The Joy Luck Club or You can’t go home again…

Meanwhile my little brother is doing his first Fastnet Race. He is in the doublehanded division and they should round the rock tonight. Unfortunately it looks like light winds and he is going 4 knots but the forecast is for winds from behind when they round so hopefully it will be enough wind to make way against any swell. The boat he is on does not perform to well to its rating going upwind in light air so he is not doing well in the rankings however, with hopefully 240 miles of downwind reaching conditions he might be able to make up a few positions. The boat he is on is an unfortunate colour (pink) so we are all going to give him some hassle about that – shame he wasn’t able to take our boat Santana 🙁

Finally today we had a miserable day and it was a day off which was really great. I say that because if it is a beautiful day on your day off you feel guilty if you don’t use it by going out for walks.

I woke up earlier than I wanted to – unfortunately my body is programmed to get up and not let me sleep in. Tommy had made a crab with the bread! It will be interesting making that into toast!

I spent the morning reading a book given to me by some friends in SF called These is my words by Nancy Turner. It is a diary of a girl in the Arizona Territories from 1881 -1901. As a result I got hungry for some buttermilk biscuits so I made some for lunch!

In the afternoon I went to the gym and also started on another project in the chippy shop as I have collected enough driftwood for it. I also painted my project which I am doing as a present which will be revealed at the end of the week.

So all in all a relaxing way to spend a monday instead of working 🙂

Early on Saturday morning we waved goodbye to Maureen (Robert the government officers partner) who has had to leave to go back to Birmingham to teach special needs children. It was sad to see her go.

At the same time the Royal Navy were calling telling us that they were anchored and were ready for us to start taxing their 250+ compliment to the shore for a morning at the museum and post office like the RFA had on Thursday and Friday.

There was one penguin on the beach that got photographed by every person that came ashore!

We had a very tasty dinner at Carse House which Sam, myself and Rob were invited to. As I was on earlies I made the rest of base dinner and left it for them – duck breast with egg noodles and an asian fusion sauce.

As it was so cold -10C with a windchill of -27C the people that came ashore tended not to stay too long. As we were running two boats we were able to get 71 ashore in the morning on Saturday and then 64 in the afternoon. Then on Sunday we got 27 ashore in the morning and 25 in the afternoon which was not a great take up. Basically everyone was put off by the weather. I drove from inside the cab the whole time as it was a bit chilly to stand on the outside helm position 🙂

I was on lates on Sunday so got to choose the movie. First off we had a 45 minute documentary on Duncan Carse and his attempt to live on his own in a hut on the South Coast of South Georgia during the 1960’s. It was an interesting story. Then we watched Syriana with George Clooney and most people enjoyed it.

Photos by Sam

The title is referring to the CO2 monitor which we shoved down the exhaust of Prion’s webasto heater. The exhaust kept on belching out black smoke and then catching alight when we tried to use it. After talking to the Webasto technical advice team Matt and I testing the exhaust as they requested however, it came up as unreadable do to the pure amount of soot. Matt cleaned out the exhaust hoses on both boats while I replaced all the reverse steering cylinder hydraulic oil on the jet units of Pipit. The oil had taken in some moisture so it was mayonnaise consistency. The port one was an easy job and the system bled of air quickly however the starboard one required a little more persuasion. So we had a Friday of getting the boats ready for a weekend of boating.

The RFA came in Wednesday night an anchored off Hope Point. Like last time we provided a taxi service to the shore for them on Thursday.

They did launch there own RIB however, after they flooded the engine we ended up towing them in gusting 40 knots back to their ship.

It was a little tricky getting them in line with their hoist system but all went well and they were soon hoisted up and safely back in the rack. As there were only 40 of them it was an easy day with not many runs to get them in to see the museum and send postcards.

Photos by Sam

Yesterday we had the day off as there was a lot of boating last weekend for those who weren’t camping and this weekend there will be boating. I pulled a pulk over as there was a bunch of items we wanted to leave in the hut.We skied over to the hut and had some lunch in the sun before donning snow shoes to Evans Lake.

Ali, Sam and I had been wanting to climb onto Spencer peak for a while and as Ali also needed to collect the monthly fur seal faeces samples we decided to stay over the night in Maiviken. Just above Evans Lake we removed our snow shoes and took out our ice axes to use as a walking stick more than anything. The snow was quite soft so we went for the scree slope with a small amount of snow it was hard going at some points as the snow would slide over the unconsolidated scree making the footing unstable at times. We came back down a gully full of the soft snow with Ali trying to bum slide a little. Check out Ali’s interactive panaroma of the ridgeline at http://www.amwphotos.co.uk/360panoramas/20110809-Spencer_ridge/20110809-DSC_2738_Panorama.htm

Sam’s picture of me surveying the amazing view out Cumberland Bay from the ridge

View down over Maiviken Lakes from the ridge. Picture by Sam.

When we got down we were just a little too late to see the penguins jumping out of the sea but we still saw them heading to their rookery for the night. Picture by Sam.

The sun setting behind the mountains on the Busen peninsula and the many mountains inland to the west of Thatcher Peninsula. Photo by Sam

Sam’s picture of the hut lit up by the tilley lamp with an almost full moon. We use the tilley for light but it also creates a lot of heat making the hut warm and drying off your socks and gloves after a day in the snow.

The wind howled all night and we were up early to get the collections done and get back to base. The morning light was spectacular. We put on snow shoes for the trip from the hut down to the beaches where there were quite a few skittish young males furries.

On the way back after getting Ali’s poo the gusts of wind were strong – blowing the snow around and unbalancing us on our skis. The overnight wind had created large strastrugi icy sections and deep drifts of soft snow. The pulk was difficult to manage on the traverses as with rope leads instead of a solid lead and no runners it went sideways down the slope trying to pull me over. With a small load it didn’t matter too much though.

We left the hut planning on possibly climbing an unamed peak from Deadmans however, when we got there there was blowing snow from the plateau below the summit and the sky looked a little ominous and with a forcast of 30 knot winds we decided to head on home. Well the sky cleared to beautiful blue and there was no wind but by then we were back at Grytviken having snowshoed in deep snow from Maivaten.

This is Rob and Andy next to the remains of the old ski jump at Grytviken.

The cove was full of pancake ice in the tidal area but pretty solid thick ice covered the rest of the cove.

As it was Sarah’s birthday I made limoncello cookies and we presented her with her gift made by Rob, Tommy and myself. The present is made with recycled materials – the ice tongs are an old baking tray, the glasses and ice bucket from Navy Rum and London Gin bottles and the wood base from an old bedstead and mahogoney from the fishing vessel wreck. (Picture by Pat Lurcock)

There is nothing better than climbing up a steep tussock slope first thing in the morning with an almost 60lb rucksack on your back! The views were stunning across Cumberland West Bay which made up for it though. The tussock is also strong enough that you can use your arms to help pull yourself up the slope.

We made our way from the beach to the summit of Camp Peak which was one of the nicest summits that both Rob and I have done since getting to South Georgia. This is the view down into Maiviken with the frozen Maiviken Lake to the right and Spencer Peak with Repeater Ridge.

The view from Camp Peak out the entrance of Cumberland Bay to the Southern Ocean.

From Camp peak we waded through a lot of snow up to a Col which had to precipitice of a drop to Maiviken for us to contemplate with our full winter packs on so we retreated a small way down and went back up to the ridge and over another Col. This dropped us into the top end of Boulder Pass.

From there we donned snow shoes as the snow was very deep and we worked our way through the plateaus and lake once more towards the shore and round the North end of Maiviken Lake to the hut. We got to the hut in time to have a civilised cheese and biscuit break in the sun while sitting on the bench I made at the beginning of the year.

Rob went out onto the lake with a shovel and ice axe to see how thick the ice was under the blanket of snow. It was very solid good quality ice and took a lot of twacks to finally get through in a small 1 inch hole! It was about 8 inches thick 200 feet from the shoreline.

We had a great dinner of soup for starters and custard sponge for dessert each with a different main course. After a few games of cards it was time for another good night sleep.

This is the RIB after Rob, Andy and I were taken over to the North side of the Thatcher peninsula and dropped off for two nights camping on Friday afternoon. Tommy and Matt Holmes wrapped up warm and decided to stick it out the whole trip on the RIB after saying jet boats are for ‘girls’!! The RIB and jet boat then headed across the way to Busen Peninsula to pick up Robert and Maureen which was the reason for the trip after their five day holiday over there. It was -8C on Friday not warming up even during the day.

We left our overnight kit and firewood in the cave on the way past and got dropped off further down the coast to walk back with day packs only up Papua Valley and down Curlew Valley to the cave on Friday evening.

It was snowing and quite windy as we walked around the base of Stenhouse and up to the col between Stenhouse and Camp Peak. With just our day sacks it was easier to get through some of the snow drifts which were at some points were up to my waist level!

We didn’t hang around the Col for long as the wind was blowing the snow all over the place and we wanted to drop down into the lee of the ridge line.

After 2.5 hours walking we made our way to the beach down the last steep tussocky snow covered slope and enter the cave through the small slit in the rock.

The cave goes back quite a distance and in the back it is sandy and dry. There were a few icicles hanging from the roof that had formed ice domes on the ground beneath. So we sent up our bivvy bags in the back with our down sleeping bags inside and it was a really good nights sleep listening to the waves lapping in the enterance off the cave.

We were able to dry our gloves and socks next to the fire which burnt till we went to bed at 9pm. As Rob says he loves camping as you get to go to bed at 9pm and gets lots of sleep!

Saturday morning was beautiful and sunny with blue skies it had snowed overnight and with high tide you had to nip out of the cave between the waves so as not to get wet!

I will put Saturday’s pictures up in a few hours but must nip off for Sunday roast dinner at Carse House. Hope you all had a great weekend.