Hoar frost around tussock grass

Icicles forming from water seeping out of the moss and tussock.

Lake Jeremy frozen over we didn’t walk down to the lake but next holiday hopefully we will get some skiing on the slopes around the lake.

Tommy, Rob and myself on Sudan beach near to our campsite with the Hamberg Glacier behind.
The glacier flows in an east-northeast direction from the northeast side of Mount Sugartop to the west side of the head of Moraine Fjord.

The glacier up close at the ice front. Originally charted by the Swedish Antarctic Expedition, 1901-04, under Nordenskjold, who named it for Axel Hamberg, Swedish geographer, mineralogist and Arctic explorer.

Today was busy with Boat School, Doc School, jet drive servicing and another extended lunch break with a long walk to Deadmans in the snow in my plastic to see how they would wear in. Oh and also 15km on the bike while watching the Burma section of a World at War and packing my bag for tomorrow holidays!

When I went into work at 7:30am it was dark and snowing lightly

Servicing the jet units – buckets are off and removing the tailpipe to have a look at the impellors.

The dam where our drinking water supply comes from at the base of Bore Valley.

The mountains reflected in Maiviken Lake it was a beautiful view from Deadmans.

Not many people get to go on a walk like this on their lunch break! I rushed on home just in time for boat school where we did position fixes. The guys did a great job despite my very bad lecturing technique. After boat school was Doc school where Sam did a much better job of lecturing than me and went through the contents of our grab bags.

Fully packed with crampons, ice axe, snow shoes, snow shovel, avalanche probe, avalanche transciever, tent poles, tent pegs, stove, kerosene, ski poles, expedition sleeping bag, down jacket, thermarest the list goes on and on!

Four days of food packed by day. Lots of goodies I brought in my p-box from the US for camping like crystal light and nestles hot chocolate.

Have a great rest of the week and weekend I will be back on Sunday night or monday morning.

This morning Matt and I pulled out Prion the jet boat. Due to our slick operation the water needed to come up another 6 inches before there was enough to fully get her out. We hastened the procedure by backing up the trailer a little further. It is always a little nerve racking as the slipway stops abruptly and if you back the trailer too far it is a large issue getting the trailer back out of the water. Apparently the last boatman had the experience of having to use the jet boat to hoist the back end of the trailer back onto it when it was backed in to far. Matt and I don’t wish to have that experience!

The job list isn’t too large and as we have now changed to a 2 monthly haul out from a 3 monthly one and the water is not as warm as in the height of summer there was not too much growth on the bottom. Anchor locker checks, heater repair, jet unit checks, full clean of the interior of the cab and engine bilges and painting of the handrail to stop the ice light from reflecting into your eyes. One or two small things that are nice to do not need to do and she will go back in the water on Monday when I come back from holiday.

I spent mid morning writing up notes for tomorrows boat school about position fixes, transits and depth. Calling it a day when I got to running fixes so tomorrow morning I will need to finish that up. I took an extended lunch break as it was good weather and instead worked till 5:30. During my lunch break I hiked up to Deadmans in the snow. I took my snowshoes but it wasn’t deep enough for that. Ali and Katie had come back from Maiviken only 2 hours before me and in many places there tracks were already obliterated. There was enough of a breeze that the flanks of Hodges had a halo where the sun was glinting on blowing snow. The snow snaked its way across the surface as I walked up Bore Valley. When I got to the top of Lewis Pass there was quite a lot of blue sky and it was very pretty indeed.

Tomorrow more jet boat work, boat school and packing my bag with winter trip requirements before off on holidays on Thursday.

This morning the cove was covered in slush ice or shuga. There is a large amount of fresh water on the surface of the cove as it comes down Bore Valley and from Gull Lake as snow melt and pours into the Cove. The formation of sea ice starts with a thin skin oce ice crystals over the water called frazil which is easily disrupted by wind etc. Sometimes the snow falling floats on these crystals. If left undisturbed frazil coagulates to form nilas, a continuous sheet of ice that will gradually increase in depth. However, this morning with the small amount of wind nilas was not formed instead the frazil acted as seed crystals, ice growing around them to form a floating slushy mass that was a foot thick. In some place this slush had further congeal into a spongey mass called shuga. These get banged together as they harden and look like plates with edges raised all the way around – known as pancake ice (there were a few of these but with an increase in wind were quickly dispersed).

Being monday there was the normal weekly checks of all the boats. I spent the first part of the morning writing up lecture notes for boat school and a few exercises. All a bit overkill but there are a few people wanting to do RYA Day Skipper/Coastal Skipper so I am following those syllabus and teaching to that level.

With the outboard engines trimmed properly there is a large gap between the top of the transom and the engine brackets. The thumb screws are very close to the edge of the transom so

I milled some greenheart timber to make as a spacer which I will screw on the top and also glass over. It will take quite a while to finish this project but I do have a few months this winter!

HMS Dotty’s oar lock has been broken for a year or so. Today I took an M10 stainless bolt modified the head and drilled a 4mm hole through it. Then I threaded the plastic that is attached to Dotty and voila she now has a repaired oarlock – a little agricultural I know but I think it should work just fine for the small number of times she is out on the water!

I haven’t had a winter in 6 and half years so it is a bit of a shock to see the moon rising next to Duse at 5pm… still over a month to midwinter. It will be getting dark around 4pm next month.

As sunday morning dawned I looked out of my pitroom window to see the sun glinting off the snowy peaks and a full covering of snow on the beach. The last fishing boat of the season was motoring into the cove to be inspected and for Andy Black to go aboard as observer. Andy will be on for 3 to 4 months while they fish for toothfish and then head back to Stanley.

After dropping off the Government Officers aboard for inspection Tommy and I put the RIB in the water ready to pick up Matt and Sue at Sorling as they wanted to come home a day early. I then serviced one of the camping stoves that was acting up and milled some timber for my next woodwork project.

It was wood that was found on the beach and floating behind the jet boats.

We picked up the happy campers and headed on home by the time the boats were put away new fuel brought over from the fuel bund it was 1:45pm!

I spent the afternoon doing lots of little projects including making some insulated covers for my Nalgene water bottle to stop my water freezing on my Aconcaqua trip. Unfortunately there was no close celled foam to use for insulation so I had to use some small bits of old thermarest which will paobably not fully do the trick. Also I haven’t been able to find any zipper to use to attach the top so until I do the lid will not be attached!

Being Sunday it was movie night and Tommy was on lates so we watched Ironman 2.

Today I hiked over to Maiviken Hut as I wanted to tighten the cables that hold down the hut. I felt like a vandal when I left large footprints in the ice over the moss beds on the way there and back.

While the spray was soaking into the rusty turnbuckles I sat on the bench (I made back in January) and had lunch. As you can see behind me the windows of the hut are covered with about 3 inches of icy and snow. The wires I went to tighten are the ones leading up to the roof. Unfortunately one of the turnbuckles was so rusted I would have sheared it so I will have to go back with a new one and a hacksaw. The other one is now nice and tight so it can wait till I get back there next week.

The snow caught in the short grass looked like cotton blowing around a field.

On the way along the track I noticed a large piece of wood probably from the jetty at Grytviken and decided to carry it back to base to use for a project I am getting ready to do in the chippy shop. It was quite heavy being 12 foot long and 6 x 3 and a little wet. Thanks to Tommy’s help holding onto the other end it is already milled and drying in the boatshed. There was a great handmade nail sticking out of it which I have saved and will try to use in some way. I won’t start the project until after mid winter when everyone is finished with their MWPs and the chippy shop is a little less busy.

Hopefully tomorrow will be another relatively nice day – it has started to snow is small flurries so there will probably be a blanket tomorrow. I am off on holidays with Tommy and Rob next week from Thursday through Sunday on the Greene and am looking forward to it.

Odd title indeed! We took Matt Boat and Sue across to the Barff and dropped them at Sorling this morning for holidays. I went with Sam in the RIB and put Ali and Katie on the jet boat as I need to sign him off as a coxswain. On the way out Sue and Matt were on the jet boat – just before leaving the dock I told Matt and Rob not to worry if he heard strange things on the radio.

On the way back we waited till Ali was a distance ahead of us and I told Sam to stop the RIB. We sat there and drifted while waiting to see if Ali would react. He did a good job and stopped the jet boat after about a minute and half. We then waited to see if he would call to check on us which Katie did. We ignored the first call and then took the next call. I told them between fits of giggles that we needed assistance as our propellors had fallen off and there were ping pong balls in the engines! Before you all think I am completely nuts it was Sam who came up with the ping pong balls after watching the guys play in the boatshed and seeing the balls all over the shop!

So Ali, Sam and Katie had a lesson in setting up a side tow which we did for about 1/4 mile before starting our engines again. After lunch I taught knots to the group followed by some basic chartwork for Rob and Katie who had missed last weeks session. Basically a day of boat school on and off the water and cooking. I decided it felt like a roast sort of day so tonight we are having roast pork with crackling, roast veg, potatoes, roast parsnips, brussel sprouts sauted in bacon fat with bacon bits and last but not least cauliflower cheese. Oh and dessert is marble sponge with sticky chocolate sauce.

No interesting or exciting news today. No need for those snow chains and studs after all as it started to rain this morning. A day of indent, attempting to find instructions on how to fix our Italian made horn on the jet boat and getting ready for boat school tomorrow.

Knots for everyone and chartwork for those who missed the session last week. Mr Boat and Sue are off on holiday to the Barff tomorrow till Monday so I am taking his boat school session. The last fishing boat for inspection left Punta a few days ago so will probably be in Cumberland Bay sometime this weekend. Otherwise all is quiet in snowy, rainy South Georgia.

I spent the afternoon on the sewing machine making little covers for the manual bilge pumps as the diaphragms perish quickly in the high UV down here and also making a bag for HMS Dotty’s spares.

This morning I woke up and it was a little bit too icy for a run I thought maybe as the day went on it might soften however, it stayed just as bad. I fell on a sheet of ice outside the boatshed so maybe if it is like this tomorrow it will be time for snow chains on my boots and studs in my running shoes!

I spent the day finishing off rebuilding the Mariner and tested it out much to my surprise it ran like a champ!

Shelves of spare boat parts in our boatshed.

Also the annual indent is due mid month so I started going through all our stocks.

In the evening I went for a walk instead there are icicles all along the track and hanging off the grating going across Gull Lake dam. For a short period we had a small patch of blue sky and sun but it didn’t last very long. It is not getting light now till around 8am and gets dark just after sunset at 5pm.

The walk helped me walk off some frustration I had with a comment from someone about Americans reactions to Osama’s death as being rude. I bit my tongue and reminded myself that I am on a British base and the person making the comment was a teenager in 2001 maybe not able to comprehend the devastation of 911 to many families especially New Yorkers.

Some people find the Darryl Worley song distateful but it shows the sentiments of many Americans including my family members in the US Military.

I hear people saying we don’t need this war
But, I say there’s some things worth fighting for
What about our freedom and this piece of ground
We didn’t get to keep ’em by backing down
They say we don’t realize the mess we’re getting in
Before you start your preaching let me ask you this my friend

Have you forgotten how it felt that day?
To see your homeland under fire
And her people blown away
Have you forgotten when those towers fell?
We had neighbors still inside going thru a living hell
And you say we shouldn’t worry ’bout bin Laden
Have you forgotten?

They took all the footage off my T.V.
Said it’s too disturbing for you and me
It’ll just breed anger that’s what the experts say
If it was up to me I’d show it everyday
Some say this country’s just out looking for a fight
Well, after 9/11 man I’d have to say that’s right

Have you forgotten how it felt that day?
To see your homeland under fire
And her people blown away
Have you forgotten when those towers fell?
We had neighbors still inside going thru a living hell
And we vowed to get the one’s behind bin Laden
Have you forgotten?

I’ve been there with the soldiers
Who’ve gone away to war
And you can bet that they remember
Just what they’re fighting for

Have you forgotten all the people killed?
Yeah, some went down like heroes in that Pennsylvania field
Have you forgotten about our Pentagon?
All the loved ones that we lost and those left to carry on
Don’t you tell me not to worry about bin Laden
Have you forgotten?

Have you forgotten?
Have you forgotten?

It is sad to see how divisive the incident has been within my group of friends outside South Georgia. As the British primeminster said his death was ‘justified, lawful and right’. Enough politics as that is not why people read my blog.

The world outside KEP has had quite a weekend with the Royal Wedding on Friday and Osama’s death on Sunday. The picture above was taken on the Clyde by Matt Boat (I think) of the celebrations on the actual day in the Petty Officers mess.

For the Osama news we even had a special 2 page addition this morning on top of our normal mini newspaper. Whether or not his death makes a difference to terrorist attacks it has a psycological impact on all Americans drawing a line under the events of 911 for all the families affected – similar to a serial murderer being brought to justice. It is the end of an era as one friend put it – similar to the ”end” of the Troubles in N. Ireland – which unfortunately continue on a lesser level today (I hasten to add for individuals still effected it is not a lesser level). This doesn’t seem the time to let any guards down and I am not so sure about the necessity to ‘dance’ on the grave but than that is probably my British side coming out. I have friends with all different opinions we are lucky to live in a society that allows freedom of expression and everyone should respect that.

On Saturday Alastair downloaded the highlights of the wedding which a group of us (more boys than girls!) watched. There are a few people who don’t believe in Royalty so they didn’t watch however, I believe it to be something the British should be proud of. The Royal family is a large part of culture and heritage of Britain and for the 63p per year (according to my brother) it costs per person in Britain I would say it is well worth it. The amount of money that poured into London over the weekend I am sure more than made up for the costs. Besides that the pagentary is something that I feel proud to see and hope continues! So this weekend I was in a great position with my dual nationality as I was able to say that both countries did me proud.

Meanwhile as it was yet another bank holiday weekend the weather was atrocious with 60 knot winds blowing snow horizontally so I decided to postpone my monday off for a better day and worked instead. Hopefully we will have a nice sunny day soon to go back to exploring the local peaks. Instead we have been hitting the gym hard and now lead the 6000km race across Antarctica by 1698km which is over double what the distance the second place team has gone so far! We are over half way across the continent with 7 weeks left before midwinter. So much easier than actually manhauling to the South Pole and on across!