Hodges, the fast and the slow

Mount Hodges sits behind Grytviken, and rather dominates the skyline from KEP.  Standing at 605m tall it may not seem that high, but the steepness and exposure make up for extreme height. Most of the way up is over scree, through steep gullies, and over the occasional patch of snow.

Most people choose a nice afternoon or mornings walk up Mt. Hodges, but not the outgoing sparky – Richy. After coming to South Georgia 2 years ago Richy started running, and discovered he had quite a talent for it. In the SG expedition book is written an account of a speed ascent of Mt. Hodges, starting and finishing at the museum back door, with a record time set at just over 49mins. The Hodges Challenge as it has now become known was just too tempting, and before leaving the island he was determined to give it a go.

Richy after the run

After posting people at key points along the route for safety, the record attempt was on. Richy set off at a good pace, heading up the side of Mt Hodges, springing up through the scree. After just 33mins the radio call came through to say he’d reached the summit. Then came the downhill, we’re not really sure how he manages to get down a hill so fast, but after only 13mins descent Richy came running back to the museum. A new record time of 46mins 15sec was the result, an incredible achievement, hopefully to be recognised by Guinness World Records in the near future.

My trip up Hodges, if you haven’t guessed already was quite a bit slower, more of a steady siege than a high octane surprise attack!

Lyndsey, Tommy and Matt above Grytviken

Setting off Saturday mid-morning, the first part of our walk was up to the summit of Orca, a peak on the side of Hodges, and overlooking Grytviken, and ideally situated for a rest and a bite to eat! After enjoying the views for a good while we continued up the steep scree to the summit of Mt. Hodges.

Looking down the mountainous spine of South Georgia

From the snow capped summit the view was stunning. It was pretty breezy, and disturbed snow blew around whenever we moved. There was enough time to take a load of photos though, and with the tripod buried in the snow we could all get in the shot.

Tommy, me, Lyndsey and Matt on the summit

Getting back down was almost as hard as the ascent, negotiating some steep gullies and loose scree. Making our own way down the side of the mountain into Bore valley rather than following the standard routes was good fun and exercised our route finding skills a bit. We even found a nice snow slope to play around on and slide down.

Matt and Tommy!

Orca and Hodges make up part of another South Georgia Challenge: “The 7 Peaks”. These are the peaks of: Duse, Orca, Hodges, Petrel 1 & 2, Narvval and Brown mountains. And the challenge is to climb them all in one day. While we were on our jolly up Hodges we had a great vantage point to see a number of the ‘old crowd’, (who would be departing 2 days later), make use of the great weather and successfully completed the 7 peaks. That’s is a hill day I am really looking forward to doing, stunning peaks, some exciting snow runs, and some great views (fingers crossed)!

New arrivals

December is a busy month, while the UK gets hit by ‘the big freeze’ we are heading towards the middle of summer, and onwards with the breeding season. The beaches are bristling with with Fur Seals, Gentoo penguins have their chicks, Light mantled sooty Albatrosses are on their nests and the Terns are eagerly defensive towards anything that moves.

Skuas fight over afterbirth

Fur Seal numbers are looking excellent this year, a very positive sign after the poor season last year due to a shortage of Krill. Peak pupping was around about the 7th of December, and there are lots of them crawling around the beaches and in the tussac. Getting about the beaches and tussac can be quite tricky with so many seals around, so care has to be taken at all time to avoid accidentally bumping into a rather grumpy set of teeth! Whilst the pups are very cute, they are born angry! If you pass close by one you are met with a feisty terrier like growling and bearing of teeth! Fortunately though they aren’t all that quick at moving yet (unlike the adults that are damn fast) so you have plenty of time to move on by.

Tortula, one of the study beaches

Part of my job at the moment is to keep a count of the number of Fur Seals. This is done by counting all the males, females, pups and juveniles in fixed study plots on the beaches marked out with small patches of red paint on prominent rocks. Using these figures you can compare counts between years, and estimate when the most pups are born. This date for peak pupping is used to decide when to carry out the annual pup weighing.

A rare and particularly cute blonde pup

Hi winds are common, creating some nice cloud formations

Light mantled Sooty Albatross

As well as being the zoologist I (along with everyone else on base) am also crew for boating operations, and get trained to be cox too. We have two very nice jet boat harbour launches, two RIB’s, and a tiny inflatable called dotty. One of the government officer needed to be taken around to Stromness to meet up with a cruise ship for an inspection, and I got to take the helm for my first trip outside Cumberland Bay, and into our extended boating limit. With a cruise ship alongside the jetty some tight manoeuvring was required, before we could head off out on our way. There was a nice bit of chop and swell around, which made progress fun, but we were soon at Stromness, ready for the passenger transfer. The cruise ship was a little bit late, but a good blast back along the coast surfing the swell got us back just before sunset.

Stromness whaling station

On the way back from Maiviken after some Seal work Ashley, Rob and I took a bit of a detour into an area of lakes know as the ‘Lake District’. It was very pretty and there were some nice views back down the the bay and over the other lakes.

Looking down towards Maiviken from the ‘Lake District’

Having set off a few weeks previously a team of Norwegian Kayakers made it back to KEP having circumnavigated the whole of South Georgia. This was quite an incredible journey, and they did very well to complete the challenge in very good time. One casualty of the trip was one of the Kayaks which got rather too much attention from an Elephant Seal! The team managed to make a good repair though using all their spare fiberglass and epoxy, and completed the challenge. We used the celebration as a good excuse for learning how to use flares with the old out of date stock.

Welcoming back a team of Kayakers who circumnavigated South Georgia

The repaired kayak

With life on base tending to revolve around our work a number of social events are regularly held. One of these is the Saturday night formal dinner. Three courses, smartly dressed, or following themes where everyone gets together. Tommy and Matt-mech organised a British Pub themed evening with great pub grub, fancy dress, bar games, and a pub quiz! It was a great evening, although I did get distracted briefly by some nice light and clouds, which I hope you’ll agree was worth while:

Catch up - part 2

So here are a few more photos, so that I am almost up to date!! It's really hard work trying to find the time to keep my blog updated, and even to just e-mail home! I've been busy writing my Christmas cards too, the last postal ship leaves at the weekend, so they have to be done by then. The ship will be back in mid December to bring stuff in for Christmas too :-)

The old Predator Ecologist did the weekend trip to Maiviken on his own (we are taking it in turns at weekends), so I made use of the free time to climb a couple of mountains instead. Great fun, the bonus of doing long walks every other day is that I'm already pretty fit.

View from Orca. Bore Valley up to the left is my walk to work, Grytviken is in the middle, and Gull Lake is on the right.

 

Our senior boating officer Ashley was keen to recreate Frank Hurleys photo at the top of Mt Duse, so I took up my camera and tripod. We had a postcard of the original photo with us so that we could get the right pinacle to sit on, and get everything lined up. I'll have to put the original in for comparison at some point. It was a bit of a precarious place for Ashley and Rob to perch, but it was worth it. The views were stunning too, and it was such a still day we were able to sit around and really soak it in and enjoy the views.

 

Rob and Ashley recreating the Frank Hurley photograph at the top of Mt Duse looking down to Grytviken

A 360 degree photo from the top of Mt Duse, KEP is centre image

A beautiful evening of star trails, with the mountains lit up by moonlight

Having done a few photos of star trails I wanted to incorporate some of the local wildlife. Elephant seals are a bit dull and slug like at night, and it's not such a great idea to get close to Fur Seals, so King Penguins were the obvious choice. They have good 'Ahhh' factor too! I'm not sure which of the two I like best, but I'm pretty pleased with them both.

More star trails, with penguins that moved around a lot

Playing with more star trails and the flash (1 frame for penguins, and about 1hr of frames for the trails)

King on the beach outside the kitchen

Time for a catch up - part 1!

An interesting King Penguin appeared at the base. I think it's partially leucistic, and it caused quite a bit of interest. It had extra yellow on the head, lots of white feathers on it's back, and pink feet with black spots.

Extra yellow on the head

Spotty feet!

Speckled back

Everyone on base takes it in turn with the early and late shifts. Earlies start at 6am and require you to make the days bread, unload the dishwasher, make up the powdered milk, and then go around base checking that all is as it should be. Below is the result of my bread making, pretty pleased!

My loaves of bread

One of the other tasks of being on earlies is to cook the evening meal. With everyone on base it's quite a big task. Fortunately for me a few people had gone out onto a cruise ship for the evening, easing my task somewhat. I decided to go for good old fish and chips, making a nice beer batter for the pollock, Jon, who I'm on earlies and lates with created a nice polenta batter, for those that couldn't have the normal stuff. It all went down very well, and everyone had clean plates.

Looking South from KEP

After my day on earlies comes a night of lates. This means staying up late, making sure everyone gets to bed safely, emptying the bins, switching on the dishwasher, and doing the rounds of all the buildings to make sure windows are closed and nothing is leaking etc. Having been invited onto the expedition ship Polar Star for the evening Jon and I split the building checks and did everything in good time. It was a stunning clear night, so I stayed up and took some star trail photos across the bay. It really was a stunning night, and I'm quite pleased with the results. The night sky is simply incredible when you are away from light pollution.

The milky way

Heading South

I'm now down on South Georgia, and what a trip to get here! Fly to the Falklands via Ascension, then several days on the South Georgia Fisheries Patrol ship Pharos. And since I arrived I havn't stopped. Induction, work, relief, more work.... so appologies for not being in touch!

Wandering Albatross

Several days of sailing gave plenty of opportunity for sea watching and taking photos of the birds. Plenty of action was to be had from the back of the ship, Giant Petrels, Black-browed, Wandering, Royal, Grey headed and Light-mantled Sooty Albatrosses, Wilson's Petrels, Black-bellied Storm Petrels, Prions, Shearwaters, Diving Petrels, and one morning some Snow Petrels appeared too which was a real treat.

Snow Petrel

Meals on board were brilliant, a cooked breakfast, lunch and dinner. With little to do we killed time sea watching, playing scrabble, and taking photos. The weather was really pleasant, even s the ship rolled around quite a bit.

South Georgia appeared a day ahead of schedule due to the fine weather, the mountains are incredible, it's almost like the himalayas have been half drowned. Watching the officers taking bearings and comparing them on the chart I noticed Cape Wilson, and thought it was an appropriate point for a photo!

Infront of Cape Wilson

KEP from the Pharos

Approaching KEP we were welcomed by the base staff all in fancy dress and doing mexican waves! It felt slightly surreal to be here finally, but incredibly exciting.

The view from the base

The view from the base is pretty spectacular, the above photo is the view from my bedroom, living room, dining room, kitchen, lab and office, what more could you ask for! The weather for the first week has been amazing, clear blue skies and light winds made the first week very pleasant. There wasn't much time to settle in though. Work started in ernest straight away. Every other day I have to walk over to Maiviken, check the beaches for seal pups and females, and then walk home, a round trip of about 15km. The terrain is not the easiest either, scree, snow, rocks, and some boggy section.

Maiviken Sealers Cave

The old sealers cave at Maiviken is an interesting sight to see, the entrance of the cave is boarded up and has a door, inside is a wooden platform for sleeping on.

JCR coming in for relief

Just to make life easy, on my day off between Maiviken trips the JCR came in to re-supply the base. Because of the excellent weather it did the Bird Island re-supply first, then came to us. Everyone on base had their jobs, packing boxes into the stores, driving the forklift etc. I was working on the jetty, unhitching stuff from the crane, loading boxes and crates into the trailer, and finally loading up stuff to go back to the UK or Falklands for recycling. It was lots of hard work, but great to see all our food and gear coming in. We were so efficient that the JCR left again the same day. The following day was spent sorting out all the drinks in the bond, and then heading over to Maiviken on the usual seal beach rounds. I certainly was worn out and aching!

Looking back from Dead Mans Pass on my walk to work

The walk to Maiviken is pretty incredible in good weather. Up behind Grytviken, following the valley up, past the water supply dam, and up to Deadmans Pass. From here you get a stunning view, and it's a nice place for a rest too. The main downside of the walk is that once a week I have to study 10 Fur Seal poo's. This basically means sticking them through a sieve and collecting the krill hard parts for measuring, and looking for otoliths (fish ear bones which can be used to identify fish species).

Overlooking Penguin River

It hasn't all been work since I arrived. I have now had 2 days off! The first I went with some of the others to Penguin river. It was a lovely walk along the beach, and yes there were Penguins in the river, King Penguins in fact. On the walk back we visited the artillery gun and shed, and the crashed helicopeter too.

Todays day off has been brilliant. I was asked if I wanted to go out on the Harbour Launch, as the new boating officers would be taking them out to get familiarised with the local area. When I have some time I'll put up some photos from the trip!