The posts next to the jet boat needed to be removed for the fence to go in place however, they were frozen in the socket. Matt put a butane torch to the metal while I used a sledge hammer as a bosuns persuader!

The fence was finally dry so Matt and I attached the fenders and using the JCB and a sledge hammer put it in place. As the ground is a bit too frozen we will wait for it to thaw in the warmer weather before digging the angled legs in place.

Matt leans on the fence he welded together surveying the jet boats!

I struggled to replace the seals in the hydraulic steering ram on Prion one of the jet boats. What a hassle! The rod end needed to be removed to put on new shaft seals and when I went to unscrew it for a start I had to heat it up to break the loctite bond but then it undid fine until it got 7/8 of the way off. At this point the thread was damaged probably occuring when they manufacturered the unit as it has never been taken apart. It got to a point where it would not go on or off. What to do? No spare unit which is not great seeing as we are 1000 miles from no where and it means the boat is out of commission.. Fortunately the ship was in and they have a workshop which means we could fabricate a new stainless fitting if necessary. So we ended up hacksawing the last 1/4 inch of thread then removing what was left from the end fitting and cleaning up the threads.

I spent pretty much the whole day wire brushing the new wharf fence welded by Matt Holmes (mechanic). This is going in alongside the jet boats to stop them ending up on the wharf during a storm tide.

After wire brushing it was time for a coat of paint. I will put two coats or maybe three before we put on the fenders.

Meawhile Matt (boat) and Robert (government officer) carried out load testing of the wharf bollards and line chains.

As the jet boats could have been damaged if the lines or bollards let go we decided to move them safely out of the way.

On Sunday the cove had cleared of ice but after a cold night last night we again had some ice on the surface to break through with the boats.

Having cooked wednesday and thursday I was on cook again today – a result of holiday changes etc. A few people mentioned craving lasagna so I decided to make one using the fresh toms before they go bad.

Starting with the fresh toms I made a homemade passata (tomotoe puree). This means roasting the toms then simmering on the stove top with a whole onion for an hour. Then push the mush through a sieve and reduce to the thickness required along with an onion, some garlic and some roast peppers.

Next job was to mince the meat using our industrial mincer. I opted to use pre made lasagna sheets instead of making my own pasta as that was probably a bridge to far!

If using eggs here it is a good idea to break each one individually into a cup before added to a recipe. Today I broke open 15 rotten eggs and only had 3 good ones!

So a day of cooking with a quick trip to Deadmans at lunch time as it was such a beautiful cold day. The sleet from yesterday and slight snow left a crisp 2 inches of snow on the ground.

I served the lasagna with a salad of brocolli, oranges, avocado, lettuce, onion, chilli flakes, toms, cucumber, red and yellow pepper, parsley, mint, red wine vinegar, dill – basically a mix of all freshies on station! Also pizza dough balls with mozarella centers and garlic butter.

On Saturday we started over to Harpon for a three day camping trip for Tommy’s birthday. About 1/2 way there he decided he would rather be on base for his birthday so with the weather coming in we turned around and headed back. On Sunday I spent the morning finishing off my MWP and then headed over to Maiviken hut to put a new turnbuckle on the hut.

Unfortunately the angle isn’t right so I will have to return with a shackle to sort it out.

As I turned around to head back before it got dark it started to sleet and snow.

As it was Tommy’s birthday and he likes bailey’s mousse and ice cream I made some homemade bailey’s chocolate ice cream instead of a cake and served it to him with a candle. It was quite a bit more work to make the ice cream without an ice cream maker but it is doable! I made ginger snaps as well but they didn’t turn out well so instead I put some triple ginger cookies with it that I had brought from California.

I also gave him a frame I made from a window frame I found at the whaling station with a picture of Rob, Tommy and I on holiday at the Greene last week.

Last night was the premier in the UK of The Great White Silence which is a movie that the British Film Institute restored. The film was made 100 years ago on Scott’s last expedition by Herbert Ponting’s and first shown in 1924. When Alastair heard that it was going to be shown in the UK last night he got in touch with the British Film Institute and asked that it be sent down to us here on station so we could watch it as well on the premier night. Alastairs great great uncle was on the expedition and died with Scott in a tent 11 miles from food supplies. Unfortunately he is off doing some science with Katie on a ship so will watch it when he gets back in 4 days or so. For him I am sure it will be a very moving movie to watch. How many of us in the world get to see video footage of our great great relatives? It simply doesn’t exist unless they were part of an expedition or a movie star.

None of us realised that footage existed it was absolutely stunning the quality was so good one had to remind oneself that it was shot 100 years ago. At that time as well this was probably the first footage ever taken of the wildlife – penguins, killer whales etc. what a commotion it must have caused. Down here we just take it for granted that we can look out the window and see penguins and seals on the shoreline.

The ‘special’ effects were quite funny for us from the perspective of movie making now. We laughed in the penguin scenes as they are very comical. And made lots of comments about their method of cooking and how our equipment is not any different today. The same primus stoves, the same sledges and the same pyramid tents. I guess if it is not broke why fix it. Many other things have changed – no dogs which is such a shame but then we don’t have to kill seals to feed the dogs which is a large benefit! We have skidoos that work most of the time and merino wool instead of huge itchy wool trousers and jumpers. Down sleeping bags instead of reindeer hide – we commented on the debate of sleeping with the fur in or out! The musical score stopped very quickly so everyone had to adjust to watching and reading but there were so many comments and discussions about the content that there was noise enough!

There are some clips on you tube

Sometimes when the freshies get to us they aren’t really that fresh! However, we are very lucky to have them as at Rothera and Halley they get no fresh food for 7 months of the year and the remaining 5 months there is a very limited supply.

A few months ago we got delivered a pumpkin that was 17kg. When Sam does the ordering she never knows what will actually turn up. She didn’t order the pumpkin and it was so huge I ended up cooking half of it pureeing it and putting batches in the freezer. So today I made some pumpkin muffins. We had a large amount of carrots that were going off last month so I grated them and froze them for carrot cake.

I cooked thursday as well and used a friends recipe to maket tabouli as we got in some fresh mint and basil. It was an explosion of tastes in the mouth. Although I don’t really crave freshies when we get them I really really appreciate them all the more. I served the tabouli with lamb loin with a balsalmic glaze and salad.

Boat school today was vessel light identification I think I managed to confuse and bore everyone on the subject!

Overnight the snow melted from the track leaving some large icy patches – I slipped on one on my morning run. The mail ship came in today so everyone on base hoped for packages.

I got some exciting packages and am now wearing my new waterproof down Macpac jacket which is a lovely shade of blue. The waterproof trousers were a bit large on me so I have sold them on to Rob. Some parts came in for my mid winter present and a few postcards from friends. A great magazine and Kindle cover and a package I sent out in November was returned due to the wrong address!

I spent the day continuing with indent and we had early dinner as Sue left on one of the fishing vessels as an observer. The observer who was aboard came off and will spend two weeks on station before heading back to Stanley. As we had freshies come in I made avacado, shrimp, mango, cliantro wraps (lettuce leaves), followed by lemon chicken with rice, peppers, courgettes and carrot ribbons and fruit salad and lemon tarts for dessert.

We had some night boating as the fishing vessel arrived in the cove at 7:45pm. We had to break out of the berth through thick ice to get to the vessel. While Kieron did the customs paperwork we sat alongside and I ended up talking to a group of Kiwi fisherman one of whom gave me a book to read about a family living in a remote area of NZ. Very nice group of guys I think Sue will have a good 7 weeks aboard. I am on earlies tomorrow so must get in my bunk as I need to be up in 6.5 hours!

Customization of my kit continues as I practice with my equipment and how to load my rucksack for my trip after KEP in January in Argentina. Bungee on my gloves so when I take them off I can just let them drop and not lose them – reminiscent of being a child! Leather covers on my ice axe tips held on again with bungee and a leash so I don’t lose the axe if I let go!

Picture by Sam showing the track which I skied around at lunch with beautiful blue skies!

I did my normal run to the hydro this morning and at lunch time as the snow continued to stay pretty firm on the track I decided to pull out my brand new skis and go for a skin to Grytviken and back. I love my boots which for the first time in my life were actually molded to my feet so are much more comfortable than my off the shelf down hill boots. They still need a little bit of breaking in but life is pretty good!

The skis are brand new and my first time out on them are a lot fatter than I am use to but that is because I plan on carrying heavy loads and man hauling with them so need that surface area.

Today was busy I started at 7:15am as the tide was dropping and the jet boat needed to be in the water so as it was still dark the JCB lights were on. As Sam was in the gym on the treadmill I was able to get her to help me with pulling the jet boat out of the boatshed into a position where I could power wash it. The ice on the slipway hindered the boat from smoothly rolling down to the water so I had to power wash the build up of ice off the slipway! At 8:30 Matt arrived to help me finish putting Prion in the water and was able to experience his first time driving through sea ice. The ice on the cove was thick this morning as we have had -7C and no wind for the last 5 days so it is now about 3 inches thick.

Once the Prion was alongside it was time to help Matt Mech with refuelling station. We have a fuel store and a day (week) tank system which every monday gets filled from the store and it requires somoeone to sit and make sure nothing leaks! Tad boring and cold!

After refuelling it was time to get the RIBs warmed up for a trip to the Greene. They had had to sit outside overnight as the jetboat was in the shed so I warmed up the telltale tubes with a heat gun and we had to pour warm water over the instruments to even turn them on! The ice in the mic on the VHF didn’t thaw for quite a while. We started the engines on land using the muffs before launching them to get them good and warm.

It was almost a three hour trip out to the Morraine Fjord through sea ice, grease ice, pancake ice and brash ice. We saw two lepaord seals hauled out on the ice they were looking very fat and happy. This was the first experience for Alastair, Sam and Tommy to properly drive through ice – many pictures were taken and there were lots of smiles. We picked up the depoted equipment and the dead skua that we found while on holiday and they wanted to have a look at back in the lab.

After putting the boats away it was time for lunch and then replying to the many work emails since I had been on holiday since last thursday.

Sunset at 4:30pm today was stunning.

Tommy and I sorted out the camping equipment drying out of the tents, thermarests and washing our down jackets etc.

Time for a relax and bed!

Oh the big news is that we stormed passed the 6000km finish line doing a total of 6702km with Les (my boss) doing 1200km bike ride in the last two weeks. The second place team is still on the course having gone 4448km. So Race Antarctica is finished… now what will we all do on station!

It is too hard to figure out how to write my holidays blog so I am just dividing it into topics! Starting with our beautiful campsite near to the Harker and Hamberg Glaciers on the shore of the Morraine Fjord (west side of the Greene Peninsula an inlet 3.5 miles long). The reef at the entrance is a terminal moraine.

Greene Peninsula is a mountainous cove between Moraine Fjord and Cumberland East Bay. It was named in 1979 after Stanley Wilson Greene, British bryologist working in South Georgia from 1960; with British Antarctic Survey (BAS), 1969-74, and the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology, Penicuik, from 1974.

We were dropped off with all our equipment including some dry wood to burn for our first nights campfire, Tommy’s snowboard (he is ever hopeful) and two tents. We were dropped off on Sudan beach which is a small shingle beach 0.3 nautical miles (0.6 km) south of Dartmouth Point, on the east side of Moraine Fjord, South Georgia. It was named in 1951 after the chemical stain used in the preparation of histological specimans collected by FIDS.

Tommy wanted to bivy so Rob and I each had a tent (luxury). After a first night being chilly Tommy made a mattress out of tussock grass in am attempt to make a flat surface and insulate himself from the snow!

We collected firewood from the beach that had come from the wrecks at enterance of the fjord. Much needed warmth as it was -7C at night.

We dried our gloves, boots, socks etc by the fire unfortunately a few things got a bit close and were worse for wear afterwards!

Maybe I should have taken my winter boots as my leather ones were well and truly frozen when I went to put them on in the morning. Thanks to heat pads life was a little more comfortable once I got them on!

As humans create about 1 litre of condensation whilst sleeping the inside of the tent was covered in ice crystals which had to be carefully avoided when trying to get out of the tent otherwise a wet sleeping bag was the result!

The view from my tent as the sun rose of the Harker and Hamberg Glacier was stunning.

This was a great exercise for me learning how everything fits in my rucksack – snow shoes, crampons, ski poles, avalanche probe and shovel, ice axe, expedition down bag etc. My winter kit weighs 30kg (66lbs) in total which is what I need to be able to carry at high altitude come January everyday so this is all good practice.

We cook on an optimus primus parrafin stove which on chilly mornings takes a lot of meths to get going. The water was from a stream that was freezing over and within 5 minutes the nalgene bottles lids were frozen on. There were ice crystals forming in the bottle indeed even a stopper of ice so the water couldn’t be poured out if left in for a while. I taught Tommy about using Nalgene bottles as hot water bottles which also means you have water that is not frozen for that first morning drink. Also about using snow to clean the pans out as it is abrasive. The water in the pot was taking 3 minutes to form a 2mm complete crust on top while it was in the queue to be boiled and leaving the pot handle on the lid was necessary to stop it from freezing shut.