Mm Links June 2014 Week 2

[gen2]

It appears that 'King Penguin' was too generous last weekend so he is making you work harder for your points this time.

I'll pick up where I left off last Saturday . . .

“The next time the British Antarctic Survey came round recruiting, I was much more interested.” . . . but still not convinced.

One of the St Andrews University Mountaineering Club members had a brother who had just returned from a period working for the British Antarctic Survey (BAS). I attended an illustrated talk that he gave in Dundee and that was the clincher. I applied to BAS, was interviewed and accepted for the post of Meteorological Observer (colloquially referred to as 'Met Man'). The standard period of contract was around 30 months – three summers and the intervening two winters.

I then attended a month's crash course in meteorology at Edinburgh University and its outdoor centre at Firbush on Loch Tay. A further general course followed at Cambridge University, and then it was off to Southampton to join the RRS Bransfield. It was the pre-digital dark-ages. It was October 1971.

Five weeks at sea followed before we arrived at South Georgia via Montevideo and Port Stanley. On the way, we experienced everything from idyllic tropical calm to Sub-Antarctic storm-force winds and 50-foot waves. One such morning, I was one of only four (out of 60) who showed up for breakfast.

For the next 15 months I was based on South Georgia at King Edward Point (KEP), just half a mile from a deserted whaling station called Grytviken (hence my email address).

We really were isolated in those days with over six months passing without a ship calling in. Way before mobile phones, computers or internet – not even a pocket digital calculator on base!. Weather-balloon data was calculated with the help of a slide-rule! We were allowed just one personal telegram contact with the UK per month. We generally provided our own entertainment with an occasional 16mm projected film version of a cinema release. The main hobby was photography with both slide and print film processed by ourselves. None of this easy digital stuff that we are so used to today.

Twenty three of us overwintered that year at KEP. I experienced great comradeship, fantastic scenery and wildlife that few (in those days) had seen in the flesh. Of the several types of seal, it was the Elephant seal that was most memorable – and the most fearsome - particularly when visiting the Stevenson Screen at night in the middle of an ellie harem. The beachmaster is very protective of his 'girls'.

Surrounded as we were by many seabirds, I had a fondness for the light-mantled sooty albatross. Best of all were the flightless swimming birds – the penguins. The commonest species locally was the gentoo with a small rookery not far from base.

Great excitement when the survey ships returned the following November bringing mail from loved ones back in the UK.


The photos seemed to have been a popular diversion last week so here is a selection of photos from South Georgia.

Ten images will be found here:

http://www.kirkcaldyartclub.org.uk/Index.asp?MainID=18340

[eccles]

Weather beaten
Digital camera
Film extra
Royal mail

[gen2]

The game has now closed and the results have been posted here:
http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/Quizzes-and-Puzzles/Question1344212.html