February 24th, 2011 Comments Off
It has been a remarkably busy time on base of late; we have received visits from the American Science Ship The Gould, the German Polarstern, HMS Scott and a tourist vessel The Ocean Nova. Consequently the doctors at Rothera have been remarkably busy in their roles as tour guide, shopkeeper and most importantly being Mrs Goggins, the Rothera Postmistress.
The visit from HMS Scott was particularly good fun as it was the first time the vessel has visited Rothera and so the crew aboard were all particularly enthusiastic to see around base. It was really quite surreal to see the huge ship manoeuvre into Ryder Bay just South of Rothera and for the small RIBs to be used to convey camo-clad passengers across to Rothera. The crew appeared to enjoy their brief sojourn onto land. Whist we were waiting at the end of the day for the departing guests to embark their RIBs from the wharf it was an impressive scene, the bulky grey vessel against the ashen sky and a beautiful iceberg off in the distance, when I noticed something moving in the foreground, a pod of about eight Killer Whales. Again ” All stations, All stations, Orcas at the wharf!” and we sat and watched the pod head off into the bay. This was particularly fortuitous for the artist in residence upon the HMS Scott who is specifically a wildlife artist and zoologist by training, quite perfect!
February 8th, 2011 Comments Off
Sometimes I have to pinch myself to realise how fortunate I am, and the past weekend certainly stands as evidence of this.
On Friday evening John, our Base Commander, wondered whether I would be happy to act as crew on one of the RIBs. We were dropping a couple of people at Lagoon Island to spend the night there, before heading on for some recreational boating taking advantage of the beautiful sunny evening. Over the preceding few nights we had been treated to a series of visits from a pod of Orca, and so it was possible we may also be doing some whale watching, not an offer easily refused, so I donned by boat suit and life jacket and hopped aboard.
Our first port of call was Lagoon, where we negotiated the narrow channel to bring the boat close to shore for our happy campers to disembark. There is actually a little hut on Lagoon which has been there for years, complete with bunk beds, a table and stove, rather like Bluebell Cottage at Fossil Bluff. Elephant seals abound at Lagoon, burping and belching away, however on Friday there were also some Fur Seals, nesting Skuas with chicks, which look like grey mop heads on cocktail stick legs running around whilst the protective parental units dive bomb the visitors, and a particularly talkative Adelie Penguin. I steered clear of the Skuas and struck up conversation with the Adelie instead.
