Signy, Deception and Rothera

It has been a busy 10 days. We successfully shut down the base at Signy for the Winter. Despite having a night on DP with winds gusting 87kts.
   It was a bouncy trip to the peninsula then down to Deception Island for a visit and a chance to stretch the legs then the passed few days we have been at Rothera, doing cargo work and dropping 'concrete mattresses' on some underwater piping to protect it from the ice in winter.
   All the passengers will be on board tonight then we will leave first thing in the morning to head back to Stanley, saying goodbye to Antarctica for another season.

Iced up f'c'sle

Old Whaling station at Deception

Old British hangar

Vessel alongside Biscoe Wharf-Rothera

Rothera Base

Elephant seals

South Georgia

We have now left South G, en route to Signy. My first time in SG did not disappoint, the weather was perfect. We had a bit of cargo to do then I got a chance to go ashore for a walk round Grytviken then over to Miviken. It is a truly stunning place. At Grytviken, there is an abandoned whaling station and museum, church, etc.

Alongside at King Edward Point

Grytviken

Old Whalers

Steam powered bone saw

Harpoons

'Whale Canon'

grab used to pull the whales on board by the flukes, up to 100tonne

Boilers

Another Whaler

Sir Ernest Shackleton's grave

Miviken

Fresh water ponds, full of fur seals

S/Y Pelagic Australis

A view from the bridge

The run down to Bird Island interesting, we had fog for the whole three days and a close quarters situation with another vessel. Last call Bird Island was successful, we managed to take all the cargo out using the Humbers and Tula, including an 8 tonne digger.

The ship has just left Bird Island and we are progressing well towards King Edward Point on South Georgia, the sky is clear blue and there's a low swell on the beam, a good day to be at sea!

 Fog at night with our ice spotlights helping

 Fog in the day

 The difference a day makes, South G

Back in F.I.

It was a good trip back from Halley. We encountered a bit more ice than anticipated but nothing more than causing a bit of banging and crashing.
  The weather got a bit lumpy across Drake's Passage (F8 on the beam), a bit uncomfortable and passengers on board remained in their bunks for a few days.

The ship arrived in Stanley and we were at anchor until a cruise ship took on some fuel then we went alongside and discharged cargo and passengers. Yesturday we set off for Mare Harbour, East Cove of the Falklands, to take bunkers. Once the bunkering is done this evening we will be leaving and heading to Bird Island full steam.

Icing on the Ballast vent

shelf at N9

The moon! Time to leave

Passage back

At anchor at stanley

Mare Harbour (HMS Protector)

Out in Time

The ship is fully loaded and almost ready to sail. Destination is Stanley, F.I. Goodbye to the Weddell Sea for another season.

The ice images from  after we arrived here at N9 shows that our route would have been cut off by high concentrations of ice if we had have delayed setting sail from Ronne by 24 hours, it is very likely that we would have been trapped for weeks if not longer. It just goes to show that you can't hang around here too long before it all starts to close in again.

This is sea ice concentration, dark purple 100% coverage- blue 0%. Grey is 'land'. The red line shows our actual course taken, the waypoints were the planned track. From these types of images you cannot tell the thickness of the ice, only coverage. Some of the purple is new ice which is easy for us to go through. The difficulty arises when there is thick ice with no pools of open water between floes, as the ship cannot break through it as the ice has nowhere to go, the pressure of the ice on the ships hull causes us to get stuck and become part of the ice, drifting with it until it lets us go.

Back @ N9

After four good days of ice breaking, the vessel is back alongside at N9 (low shelf near Halley base). The ice conditions on the passage back were better than on the passage there but it still proved difficult.

We will be here until Wednesday, doing cargo and pax transfers before saying our final goodbyes to the winterers at Halley and heading back to base at Stanley. The weather has been favourable although there has been patches of fog and it is certainly getting darker at night so it is time to go!
Current weather -13°C F5.

I hope you are enjoying the blog/pictures. If there are any questions you would like answering or specific pictures of things then feel free to comment/ask

Back at the biggest iceberg in the world (it hadn't moved at all)

low lying fog

me

Weddell Seal