#ive never felt this angry in my life. im walking around the beach cos i actuallt wanna find them and physically fight

[hellogreenergrass]

Signy Island - Week One

Apologies for the delay in writing anything from Signy. Its been a busy first month and things have only just quietened down. As you may know, I’m here to study a bug, one of the very few that live in Antarctica. Like many insects this one goes through metamorphosis: from larvae, to pupae to adult and then the eggs are laid and the adult dies. And that process happens only in the beginning of the Antarctic Summer. So my first few weeks have been occupied with me frantically trying to classify and experiment on these life stages,  that you cannot get anywhere else at any other time. So busy that I’ve been here for one month and 4 days now and just had my first day off!

Im playing catch up, but thankfully keep a diary, so I’ll start posting up in weekly batches, hopefully with pictures to reflect the diary entries, if I can sort them all out!

WEEK 1

13th Dec - Elephant seals are massive. Think of a seal, quadruple it in size, then add a bit more. When they are sleeping they look like rocks and keep making me jump as I walk across the beach. To my naïve eyes at least! Massive farty, belchy, wobbly, angry rocks. Best not to try and climb on them.  Said goodbye to my Shackleton friends today, bit emotional seeing them off. Just me and 4 others now on a pile of windswept rocks in the middle of the Southern Ocean.

14th Dec - I appear to have land sickness. This is horrid! Ashild, if you are reading this, Im so sorry you have to live with this! I feel pissed all the time, but without the gin. Which is a horrible deal. I’ve been on shore for 24 hours now and am still finding that the floor disappears from under my feet with the ‘swell’. Had to hold onto the door frame earlier to stop the big wave from making me spill my tea. Horror of horrors.  The cabin is a long thin building built on a beach with sleeping quarters at one end and the labs at the other, and a windowless corridor running the length. Only in the living room in the middle of the building does it open up, so I have spent an unreasonable amount of time walking in the wrong direction, or having to go back to the lounge to orientate myself! Hope I get to grips with land soon. This is my punishment for getting away with sea-sickness.

Three Adelie penguins came by today! They bimbled around on the beach looking like recently amnesic castaways. They have the most ridiculous white markings around their eyes that make it look like if you shook them their pupils would shake around and eventually settle at the bottom, like the goggly eyes you get on toys.

Iain, our Glaswegian mechanic/plumber/electrician, set fire to his trousers today. He was cutting up steel in his work issued clothes, only to find that they are less than sparkproof. Upon realising that flames were consuming his leg, he nonchalantly pats them down, and carries on, later coming in with a hole the size of his head in his trousers.  He does not fluster easily!

15th Dec - Had my first early shift this morning, up at 5.55am. Urgh. As we are on an Island, literally in the middle of nowhere, it is essential that everything keeps running smoothly. We have a reverse osmosis (RO) machine that converts sea water into drinking water, and diesel generators to power the base. If one broke, we would have a problem. If both went, we’d be cold and living off snow. Worse still, faults lead to fires, and fires lead to bad times. So we check everything at midnight each night, and again at 6am. First I go through to the generator shed, take the readings, check the engines for leaks and weirdness. Then to the RO room, make sure the reservoir is full and that all gauges read OK. Then up to the top store to check that the fridges and freezers that hold our food supply are all at the correct temperature. Rounds done, and now its my turn to make the days bread, and start prepping dinner. For when you are on earlies, you are also the cook for the day. And today Im making steak and ale pie!

Did the first part of field training today with Alex, our tame mountaineer who winters in Antarctica and summer as a Park Ranger in Alberta, Canada. He has a considerably heroic stature and a still, quiet manner. He dosen’t use words unnecessarily, but is quick witted when he does. He showed me how to use the archaic, but reliable Tilley lamps and Primus stoves that we have here. Same type that Scott and his team used back in the day. BAS sticking firmly to the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mentality there I think.  We hiked out to the Gourlay Peninsular where we have a hut, and he showed me how to light the big Reflex stove we have there, all the while quietly getting the measure of me, and how I’d fair in the hills here.

17th Dec - Storm!! Im glad I got some of my samples in yesterday, lots of low cloud and waves are bringing in icebergs to our little cove. 09:40 – getting bigger! 12:30pm - HUGE! Waves smashing up the cliffs opposite and an enormous amount of ice pushed up onto the beach. I’ve set up the go-pro to film the ice coming in. First time Ive used it! 14:00 – The communication system has gone down, And Iain has just gone out to turn the RO pump off as the ice was churning up too much silt. Matt, our base commander of several years has never seen swell this big in the cove. The Shackleton is still out to see en route to Halley, I hope they don’t have this storm too. 18:15 – Storm is easing now. Cove is full of icebergs , and the moss banks behind us are slipping with the weight of the water from the sleet/snow downpour. Exciting. 21:00 – I put the go-pro up upside down….fail.

On the plus side, the land sickness is finally wearing off. Bit exhausted.  

18th Dec - Stacey and I put up Christmas decorations today! All the joyous tat that my Dad used to buy from Trago Mills when I was a kid. Tinsel is now EVERYWHERE! The living room resembles the inside of a dodgy members club circa 1992. Especially as we wrapped tinsel around the dart board.

Elephant seals have been playing in the ice floes from the storm today, silently drifting around in it. Occasionally easing their heads through the ice, slowly upwards looking to the sky. They seem relaxed by it. I imagine this to be a seal equivalent of a spa day.

20th Dec – Finished my field training today by revising my winter mountaineering skills, going over snow belays, ice/snow ascents and the like. Knee held up OK, although it felt wobbly descending, but that’s to be expected, not having an ACL or much cartilage and that. Ripped a hole in my bloody trousers with my crampons. Second pair of Patagonia trousers I’ve done that too now! Lack of co-ordination aside, I passed field training and am now ready to be let loose upon the Island!

#antarctica #penguin #field science #british antarctic survey #free range scientist