After working on Saturday Sam and I went for a walk to penguin river – a leisurly stroll along the beach as I should have been in bed but it was such a stunning day and we knew Sunday was going to be miserable (which it was).

Sam took the pictures of me walking across the frozen Penguin River and through the tussock.

There were 5 king penguin chicks with 5 adults I hadn’t been over there for many months so it was great to see some chicks. The picture above (by Sam) is a adult feeding his/her chick – this one kept on chirping asking for food and the adult would just tap it on the head with its beak. Finally it gave in! The Elli seals had mostly gone however, there were a few furries on or two males but not really large ones. The king penguin has the longest breeding cycle of any penguins taking 14-16 months from breeding to fledging.

One furry was most perturbed by the ice on the river not liking how the surface caved in. The ice was amazing the way it had formed.

As we came back from Grytviken the light was stunning with beauitful pastels.

This morning at sunrise we were on the water having dropped off Kieron, Robert, Jude, Ali and Katie onto the Saga Sea a boat that has come to catch some krill in South Georgia. Above is a picture taken from my GoPro camera given to me by the Chance and potluck group in SF.

Krill above is fished for in the Southern Ocean for animal feed and some human consumption.

Katie and Ali have been doing Overseas Territories Environment Programme transects (above picture) to investigate the potential interactions between higher predators and the krill fishery at South Georgia, as well as the possible interactions this fishery may have with other fish stock through the by-catch of larval fish. A total of four trips are planned. On these set transects they are conducting seabird and mammal counts and trawling for larval fish. These four areas have been set in the main target areas of the krill fleet, set using historic krill catch data, and in adjacent areas that are not normally fished.

During daylight hours Ali monitors a 300 meters wide strip of sea on one side of the ship as it moves along the transect. He records every higher predator seen, which may include penguins and other birds, seals and whales. He also records the animals’ behaviour, noting if they are feeding, their direction of travel, approximate age and moult states for some of the birds. Analysis of the data should show what species are competing with the fishing industry to use the krill resource during winter. The results will build on earlier work surveying seabirds at sea carried out in 2002 to 2004.

Katie uses a plankton trawl net at night fishing for half an hour at three stations along each transect. She then analyses the collected samples to identify any larval fish.

This is a backer board for another lifering for the other side of the wharf. Matt H welded on a bracket to the forward section of the jet boat fence. I have painted that section this week and Matt will cut the fenders next week then it will be installed and that project will be complete. It will mean I can rest easy at night in a storm when it is high tide and not find the jet boats possibly on the wharf in the morning.

The bitter end of the anchor rode on the RIBs was not attached so installing a U bolt to tie it to was necessary. First drilled an oversize hole in the bulkhead then filled with epoxy to seal the plywood and redrilled and sealed with sicaflex.

The lifering stand needed a wiring brushing and painting and I made a bag for the polyprop line to live in reducing the UV damage.

On tuesday we took out the jet boat Pipit. It reminded me of taking your car out on a good winter day in the UK. Matt is here scrapping the frost off the windscreen of the jet boat – no credit card or scraper so he used a plastic thermometer!

The boat needed lots of little jobs done. Due to the ice on the cove recently the bottom didn’t need cleaning. The jet unit steering system was serviced and checks to the buckets done. Nicks were found in the electrical wiring where it entered the mast system. And as you can see from the picture above it needed a valeting – hence me scrubbing the cabin floor. More jobs to do on monday before she goes back in. The normal monthly and some three monthly jobs were also done by Matt.

Alastair figured out that we would see the International Space Station pass overhead on Wednesday night and indeed at the exact time he said it appeared looking like a plane high above and passed from the shoulder of Hodges (near to Orion’s belt) to eventually be hidden by Duse. Luckily the clouds were gone creating a stunning starscape. We waved just in case they could see us! 🙂

One of the fish that is a by catch of the toothfish fisheries around South Georgia is called Grenadier or Rattail. They are ugly fish and as there is not much commercial use for the boats that catch them here we tend to get given a few boxes each year by the fishing boats. Last saturday it is the fish I used for making Fish and Chips and even though I am not that into eating fish it was quite tasty. Kieron mentioned that if you saw them before being skinned and filleted it would be something you would think to eat! How right he is 🙂

Yesterday (Sunday) Ali made coissants he actually delivered one to me in bed! It had been a late night on Saturday so I stayed in bed till 10am! Crazy for me.

Last night I did a talk about California and what my life is like before we watched our Sunday night movie. It is an attempt we are making on base so that people know a little bit more of everyones lives off base. I showed this picture of me going around the Farlonne Islands off SF. I read quite a number of years ago the book Devils Teeth which is about the islands however, I went back to google to remind myself. I was surprised with some of the similarities of SG to the Farlonnes. Granted we have glaciers here and the island is a lot bigger however, both islands have elephant seals, fur seals, many species of seabirds, are jagged rocky peaks with no trees and the only inhabitants are researchers. Also the Farlonnes had seal hunters which I didn’t know from New England and Russia – 1500 seals were taken annually. If it wasn’t for Roosevelt protecting the islands the rate at which they were taking the seabird eggs 500,000 per month there wouldn’t be a seabird population left.

Today here we had fog at a low level most of the day however, I did go to the hut to finish off the turnbuckle and also to do an indent of what is in the hut. While I was there the wind brought more damp fog in so that I could not see more than 50 meters ahead put high above where there were breaks you could see bright blue sky!

Hope you had a great Memorial Day or bank holiday in the UK

Pirate ship cake – made from chocolate and plain sponge with buttercream icing. Blue gelatine for water, meringues for iceburgs, cotton swabs as smoke from the cannons, marzipan pirate (by Maureen)

The KEP Pirates!

Tommy and Katie asked to have a joint birthday party and I was on cook today which was the first saturday since their birthdays that everyone was on base. I had a really great time making the food for it. My menu was as below.

Shrimp filled galleons – phyllo pastry shell filled with shrimp baked in three cheeses with hot sauce, paprika and worchestire on a sea of blue gelatine

Fiery pork cannon balls – thai pork and beef meatballs with a homemade sweet chilli sauce on a bed of crispy noodles. The cannons were drawn by Tommy who I threw a piece of paper and pencil at during smoko and asked him to draw a cannon off the top of his head – not a bad job.

Eyeball Sorbet – homemade strawberry sorbet with a ping pong ball eye and a fabric pirate patch. Still from a batch made by Matt H last year..

Treasure Island Sorbet – homemade fresh lime sorbet with a palm tree made from lime rind and sea made from blue food coloring ice blended

Battered Grenadiers with pieces of eight – Origami newspaper boats with South Georgian Ale Battered Grenadier and round chips. Ali came and helped me out battering the Grenadiers so I could sit down and enjoy the meal rather than being in the kitchen the whole time 🙂

Barrels of meat with pieces of eight – I forgot to get a picture of this. It was Guiness stew with phyllo pastry crust and round chips

Hard Tack Sea Biscuits with Cheese – Nothing special just cheese board with biscuits!

Birthday Cake – I will post some pictures tomorrow as I didn’t get a chance to take any pictures of it complete!

Coffee with mints and ginger biscuits – After eight mints cut into circles and store bought ginger snaps served in origami boxes. I tried to make a proper treasure chest but it was beyond my skill level so I went for the cubes instead!

Hanging from each light I made Origami parrots

The rest of the dinner table settings I unfortunately didn’t take pictures of but I think Ali took some so will post what he has. Also everyone made a huge effort with their fancy dress so I will post that tomorrow.

I looked up pirate cocktails and made the following cocktail menu for Ali and Matt to mix up in the bar.

Fuzzy PiratePeach Schnapps, Rum and Orange

White PirateRum, Kahlua and Cream

GrogWarm Rum, spices, lime and sugar

Captains BloodRum, lime and angostura bitter

Planters PunchRum, lemon, orange and syrup

Pirate CocktailRum, sweet vermouth and Angostura bitters

This picture was taken by Tommy of tonights sunset which was beautiful. My picture didn’t come out very well.

Last night the bar was packed with the ships crew and base members for Quiz night complete with pizzas made by Matt Mech. It was a fun evening our team came 3rd out of 5 teams so not too badly!

Today Matt K inspected our lifejackets which we do every 6 months. This includes inflating them by foot pump so as not to get moisture from your breath on the inside of the jacket. There were quite a few failures… One had a hole in the bladder and the others had air leaking from the water inlet on the Hammar arming units. The units were not expired and the green not red indicator was showing. It is a good thing we have dual bladder units.

I spent the day in the field store trying to sort out spare field equipment and dispose of food with an expiry date pre 2000! Anything from 2000 on is still acceptable apparently…. I am hoping to get in touch with the military in the Falklands and beg some more supplies from them for camping.