Graeme Ger Antarctic: South Orkney Island

Jan 7th Another day that is normally a full day at sea but as we approach the South Orkneys there is a possibility of a rare landing. At the tip of this group of islands is the oldest continuous research station in the Antarctic sea, The Orcadas Base on Laurie Island. It was originally setup in 1902 by a British researcher, William Bruce. After a year he when to the Argentine authorities and sold them his equipment at this station in return for funds to do further exploration in the Antarctic. The Argentines moved in, in 1904 and have been here since then. They have the longest continual recordings of the magnetic field in the Antarctic. It is rare that the weather is good enough to stop here. Even Ray has only landed here once. As we approached the visibility was poor and lots of icebergs on the radar. As we got close it cleared and a landing looked good but now 40 Knot winds. But blessed again it cleared up and we were able to launch the zodiacs and go ashore. The 17 crew at the station have been here for one year and one day and seven hours as our man told us. We are only the second ship to visit and their email broke down a month after they got here. They do have a satellite disk and 150 channels of TV. They were thrilled to see us and some one suggested we needed to send the first two zodiacs with women only. They gave us a great tour and the museum was very interesting. They even had a few post cards to sell and key rings. We have purchased two cards and though we cannot post them here we did have them stamped here and our passports as well. It must be tough spending over a year down here it is seriously remote.
Time for some photos of the many chinstrap penguins and there were even a few Adelie and one gentoo so plenty more photos on the beach. This point is below the 60 deg south point so we are now in the Antarctic waters. Not too cold about 2C but no wind. Found two more Collingwood supporters down here, one was one of the men stationed here.
Many birds around the ship, mainly Snow Petrels and Snowy sheathbills.
Afternoon lectures by The Rock man, our geomorphologist, on the geography of the Antarctic, really interesting. How come the ice area is increasing in the Antarctic and is decreasing in the Arctic? 10,000 years ago South Georgia was under 2 Km of ice, are we heading that way again? Who really knows? It seems the science of climate change is still a guessing game.
Our oceanographer gave a very technical 2 hour presentation reduced to 1 hour. So seemed to be a bit all over the place but we did learn some interesting things. Only more confusion on the climate of this area and the rest of the world.
Have lots of visitors for drinks. John,Sue and brother Mark from Florida, the two NZ girls, Rob & Jill from Oz and of course Ray dropped in for wee dram. Official results are out and the Aussies come out on top 37 of us, 25 Yanks, and the rest are Canucks and Poms and a then lots of different countries.
Another great day with the highlight being the visit to the research station.