Notes from South 2006

I left Cambridge for RAF Brize Norton near Oxford in a chauffeur driven car at 3pm on January 31. Once again, I was the only person going from the BAS office on Madingley Road.   I arrived in plenty of time, so the check in was very rapid, but there was a long wait, first at Brize and then at RAF Fairford, where we boarded the Air Iceland 747 for take-off a bit after 11pm. I had a window seat at the front of the economy class section, which gave some leg room and easy access to the aisles. After about 9 hours and a bit of sleep we landed at Ascension Island, a generally desolate tropical island with several dormant volcanoes and a lava strewn landscape. On the second leg to the Falkland Islands I saw what looked like a few small ice floes embedded in fog, but otherwise saw little of interest. We were escorted in to Mount Pleasant airport by an RAF Tornado fighter.

From the airport it is about an hour's bus ride into Stanley, along partially metalled roads, in a bright atmosphere that was a complete contrast to the winter gloom of the UK. I was dropped off at the Goose Hotel where I spent the next few days.  I first checked out my normal astronomical observing site, but the summer has been very wet in the Falklands and it was waterlogged.  I did find a reasonable site a bit further down the road, and then continued down the road towards FIPASS to look for a plant that I’d found in 2004, but which hadn’t been previously reported from the island.  I was beginning to give up, when just 200m from FIPASS I found it again, and was able to take some photos as confirmation.

The following day I walked along the coast, finding below the potato fields of Stanley Growers what proved to be another new addition to the island flora.  Watercress had escaped from cultivation and was now lining the banks of a small stream.  As there were passing showers I stopped at the Lighthouse café for a cup of tea, before continuing on to Gypsy Cove, famed for its penguins and a top spot on the tourist agenda.  From here I walked on past the minefield protecting York Bay, and came across some orchids, which are on the red data list for the Island.  Felwort, a rather more common species was very common in the dunes, although I don’t recall seeing it before – possibly an effect of the wet summer.  On the way back the showers steadily merged and got heavier, so I arrived back at the Goose decidedly wet.

On Friday I headed off in the other direction, climbing Sapper Hill, followed by Tumbledown, where I found a couple of uncommon ferns in a rock crevice.  I cut back to Moody Brook and then followed Wireless Ridge to Penarrow Point, crossed back to Stanley Harbour and followed the old railway line back to Moody Brook and into Stanley.  Once again it was a day of showers, but mostly these were periods of drizzle, so I didn’t get quite as wet.

My plans for Saturday morning changed when I received an email requesting me to obtain specimens of the two new plants for the National Herbarium.  On the way I spotted Mountain speedwell growing below the cemetery, before continuing on to the two sites.  Altogether in the few days that I was in the Falklands I found around 150 of the 380 known species for the Islands.  Some of these are show in this illustrated guide.  I got back to the Goose with a few minutes to spare before last orders for lu nch.  I was picked up just before two for the short trip to FIPASS, where the fishery protection vessel, Sigma, was berthed.  Once on board I was shown to the largest cabin that I have ever enjoyed on my southern voyages.  A group of 9 Norwegians joined a little later – they are heading for Husvik, where they will be restoring the managers hut.  We sailed at 5pm – once we got out of the Harbour, the Sigma at first seemed a bit livelier than the BAS ships, but proved a very comfortable home for the next few days.  The voyage to Bird Island was uneventful, with generally cloudy skies and calm seas, which allowed sightings of several whales.

We arrived off Bird Island at breakfast time on February 8, and it was a quick rib ride to my home for the next few weeks, where I was welcomed by Sarah and Vicky and all the fur seals.  The station has been rebuilt since my last visit, and is quite a change from the old huts.  Unusually for Bird Island the weather was fine and sunny.  Once I had things unpacked, I had a tour to one end of the island, climbing “Gandalf”, where we had good views across to the mainland.  The next day I set up the AWS (Automatic Weather Station) that I had come to install in a lab, switched it on and it worked straight off; the harder part of installing into operation was to come.  As it was another fine evening we had a picnic dinner on the meadows above the station.  The next few days were preparing to set up the AWS, and becoming familiar with base life.  Saturday was designated as fur seal pup weighing day, so in the afternoon we headed off to the study beach.  I stood by and watched, and then took on the job of marking the pups that had been weighed and tallying them off.  It looks easy, but as a novice I forgot that they are quick and got nipped on the thumb by the second one.  After that I was more careful and didn’t suffer again.  For the second part we had to catch them in the tussock grass, which is a bit harder, and this time I helped with the catching.  Saturday night is always a special meal, and Zac started us off with a treasure hunt round the base, which initially proved very difficult, but as the clues came in we got faster. 

On Sunday, February 12, I decided it was time to install the new AWS, so in the morning I commenced dismantling the old system and preparing the new one.  Once the old AWS had taken the 15:00 readings, Sarah downloaded the final data and switched it off.  Vicky and I then cut the remaining bolts and removed the cabinet from the tower and made a start on getting the frame for the new one in place.  This was easier said than done, but once I found a few additional spacers, I made it secure, and then with help from Vicky and Donald went to collect the new AWS to put in place.  We were distracted by two seal pups from the study beach that needed tagging, but once done it was relatively straightforward to put the new cabinet in place.  After that it was just a question of fitting sensors and cables in place, but this is when the Bird Isla nd weather began to revert to type, with heavy drizzle and stronger winds.  On the stroke of dinner at 8pm I connected the final one of the initial cables and could talk to the machine and confirmed that it was recording data.  It took rather a while longer to get it fully functioning, but after following several false leads, and needing some dry weather, it sent its first messages to the Met Office on February 16.  The sunshine detector was missing, and this had to wait until just after my departure, when it was brought across from King Edward Point.

We have to take it in turns to be cook for the day.  Its not such a big task as on the other stations as there are only 8 of us, and the cook only has to make bread and do dinner in the evening, as well as some cleaning during the day.  The standard of catering is excellent, rivalling that in many restaurants.  Although lunch isn’t expected I made some soup on my first turn, with Donald making bread rolls and also made parkin for afternoon smoko (tea).  For dinner I made a mince stew, with potatoes, carrots, onions and leeks.  Eight days later it was my turn again, this timing applying a variation on the theme with cottage pie, with flapjack and fudge for “goodies”.  These didn’t last very long! 

By way of a side line I looked for the local flora of the island, and produced an illustrated guide.  This includes two new species for the island, both common on South Georgia, but not seen here previously.  I've also compiled pictures of some mosses, fungi, lichens and liverworts, but will need experts to name them.  Bird Island doesn’t often have clear skies at night, but we did have one, so I got up very early to try and spot comet 2006 A1 (Pojmanski).  It was easy enough to see in binoculars, but just appeared as a fuzzy star in the moonlight.

All too quickly my time on the island drew to a close, and the Sigma reappeared, bearing the Governor of the Falkland Islands (also Commissioner of South Georgia) to open the new building s.  Then it was an emotional farewell, with a short voyage on to King Edward Point.  Here I had to upgrade the existing AWS to make it the same as the Bird Island one, which after quite a few frustrations finally worked perfectly.  A second task was to figure out what was wrong with the weather satellite receiver.  As there were reported cable problems I checked these first, but they appeared OK.  It was too windy to test outside, but it seemed to point in the wrong position when tested indoors.  Eventually it calmed down and it soon became evident that the pointing was the problem.  This was a quick thing to fix, and fifteen minutes later it picked up an image.  Somewhat surprisingly the Ernest Shackleton, which came to pick me up and take me back to the Falklands via Bird Island and Signy had a similar problem, though this turned out to be caused by wear in a washer.

I continued my botanical sideline at KEP, with Ali, the Base Commander, showing me the alien invader – Wavy bittercress (Cardamine flexuosa), which is spreading quite rapidly round the station.  In all I found 42 different plants in the area, around half of which have been introduced from the UK, though apart from the bittercress no new ones have appeared in the last 30 years.  Dandelions and mouse-ear in particular, however have spread rapidly in recent years, and it looks as if one or two others may be following, such as buttercups.  

Life on Shackleton soon settled down, but we encountered a force 8 storm, which kept most people in their bunks.  I started off doing the met observations, but as we have five observers on board I decided that a rota would be a good idea.  Not that the observations take very long - around half an hour 3 times a day.  There isn't that much to do on board, apart from "gash" once every ten days or so, and "scrubout" for Captain's inspection once a week.  This has left me time to get on with several pending tasks (such as updating this page) and dealing with a large backlog of emails.  We visited Signy Island to close down the station for the winter, then headed for Cape Geddes to inspect a landing site.  Visibility was too poor to see anything, so we slowly steamed for the Falkland Islands.

We arrived at Mare Harbour on March 18th.  We had a day here, which I spent wandering around a peninsula to the south of East Cove looking for plants.  I found one that I'd been asked to keep an eye out for (Rumex magellanicus or Southern dock) and also found what might be a new native species for the island (Limosella aquatica, a mudwort).  The next day we were taken by bus to Stanley for a couple of days at the Goose Hotel.  On the final day I crossed the Murrell River by wading across and found a small bomb near Drunken Rock.  

As I wasn't due to fly north with BAS until March 25th, I arranged with the local travel agents to fly to Ascension Island on March 21st and spent four days on this tropical island.  It was baking hot, with temperatures in the high twenties.  I hired a car and drove out to Green Mountain, the highest spot on the island, which is mostly in cloud and has a quite different climate.  One evening I joined the turtle tour and saw a turtle laying eggs, and also lots of hatchlings.  One objective that I set myself was to see the six endemic plants in the wild.  Five occur on Green Mountain and I found four quite easily, with another on display as part of a conservation scheme.  This was quite hard to find in the wild, but with some help from the Conservation office I managed it.  The final one grows on the coastal plain, so I combined a trip to Mars Bay, where Gill had measured the solar parallax during a close opposition of Mars in 1877, with a hunt for it.  After a couple of kilometres walk to the beach and back in searing heat I hadn't found it, and was on the point of giving up when I spotted it barely a hundred metres from the car.  I took photos of many of the plants I saw and compiled them into a compendium.  All too soon it was time to leave and join the BAS group for the return to the UK.