Murder on the Antarctic Express....

5pm Sunday 21st April

I killed Andy yesterday.

I had been trying to get him for two days. I just needed to catch him alone, and while not on shift.... but the wily old goat was on to me and evaded my dastardly plans. But a chance meeting on the stairwell provided a convenient moment in which I brutally murdered my supervisor and container shift buddy.

There are just two of us left now. I must kill Jan before he gets me. Andrew and JB didn't make it through the first night as they were ambushed leaving the bar. Paul and Gwen fell the next morning while plucky Pierre survived through till yesterday morning. Then there were three. Unfortunately the Docs eye for the wine left him vulnerable to attack and he did not survive the evening. I write to you now dear friends in fear that I may not survive to write tomorrow. Know that I love you and I went down fighting.

….

The days pass slowly here so as you have probably gathered we have been playing 'killer'. Everyone who wanted to play got given the name of someone else who they had to 'kill'. To kill someone they need to be alone, they need to not be on shift/on ships business and not in their cabin. Then you don't actually kill them but rather just tell them they are dead. I killed Andy by passing him a post-it note that said 'YOU ARE NOW DEAD. Sorry!' It sounds like a silly game but on the ship it actually gets pretty intense! Nipping upstairs for a cup of tea becomes a test of bravery, arriving back safe to my cabin, heart pounding with adrenaline, and I am still alive!!!

We have left the Scotia Sea behind us and have been heading north on the Great Tracer Hunt. We are in the Argentine Basin right now with 6 km of water beneath us. So far in the cruise we have had very low tracer concentrations so this excursion north is to explore whether the tracer is now just very diluted and mixed in everywhere, or there is only the dregs left in the Scotia Sea and most of the tracer has moved on. I'll let you know if we find any!

I know I said this blog wouldn't be too sciencey but here is a little fun fact for you! We can detect 2 milligrams of tracer within a cubic kilometre of water. Really that is a conservative estimate and our detection limit is probably a little better than that.

Yesterday we got an engine room tour from Mango the 3rd engineer. It was pretty awesome! Everything is very big and very loud and very hot. We finished the tour by climbing up the funnel and coming out at Monkey Island! It was a bit claustrophobic actually....It was very hot and the ladder was very narrow and went through some tiny spaces where you could barely bend your knee to get to the next step but it was a fun experience! The control room looks just like something out of a nuclear submarine in a movie! It was all green plastic panels and buttons and flashing lights.

Under a week now till we are back in the Falklands. We have a few days in the Falklands so I'll try and post some of the best photos from the trip when I have more free time. And it is only a week and a half till I am back in the UK. Nearly time for you to get the bunting out, stock up on bubbly, and start planning the welcome home parties. I really can't wait to see you all again!

Ciao x x x x x x x

8pm Saturday 27th April

So I realise it has been nearly a week since I wrote the above blog and yet have not posted it. Pretty rubbish I know. But it has been rough. Very rough.

We had three days of transit between the series of sample sites in the Argentine Basin and the next few closer to the Falklands. This actually meant time off! Incredible. However it was crazy big weather. Everyone was walking around like zombies as the ship was rolling and lurching too much to sleep, and some even got catapulted right out their bunks! The big heavy chair at the desk in our cabin flew across the room in the middle of the night, sending the spindly little coffee table flying into the bathroom door, while the chair kept on flying straight into my bunk! The noise of the ship was huge. Our cabin is at the front of the ship and the waves crashing right over the front would slam into the wall at the head of my bed. Even with headphones and calming music I got very little sleep. Poor Gwen got incredibly seasick. She was so ill one day where she couldn't even sit upright to sip water, let alone take anti-sickness pills. So the Doc gave her an injection! Luckily things were calmer the next day and she felt better quickly. However in a dramatic role reversal I got rapidly sick. I half thought it was sea-sickness but unfortunately it was coeliacs rearing its ugly head again. The first night the Doc gave me a seasickness patch... which made me feel very queer and made my pupils bloody massive and unresponsive to light! It totally freaked Ben out! It soon became apparent that it was a gluten thing though as I still felt ill when it was relatively calm and got horrible stabbing stomach cramps and all the other wonderful coeliac add-ons. So I spent a LOT of time in bed. But still managed to work the last few shifts. I would get up, just have a tomato juice for breakfast, muddle through a shift and then crawl into bed at the end. I was really glad that I had bought loads of microwave popcorn in the Falklands as it was a good simple food that I could eat if I couldn't face a big meal in the formal dining saloon. Both Gwen and I have said repeatedly to each other that a ship is just not a fun place to feel ill. The constant shifting, no control over when or what you eat, fierce AC that dehydrates you in under a minute.... etc etc etc. But we have been pretty good at looking after each other!

So after a looooong few days in transit west we just had 6 CTDs between us and home. Score! They went pretty fast actually. During my shift I would look at the time and think there was no way I would make it through the next hour and a half... but I have learned that thinking in terms of samples is much nicer. You put a new sample on ever ten minutes, so that is just 9 samples then I can go to bed. 9 samples is fine. Easy. I can manage that. The last CTD was really nice actually! Soooo many people turned up to help sample! It was a lovely high-spirited atmosphere. The only slight problem was that I knew we would still be running the samples till late the next day, while everyone else was done!

Friday night was the end of cruise dinner which was great fun! We all got very dressed up (I even put on make-up!) started with GnTs in the bar with nibbles (I was still feeling pretty ropey so stuck to just the T part!) Then it was an incredibly lavish dinner. It started with a huge platter of cheeses and meats and salmon and prawns and olives and posh breads (I had cheese and olives! Lovely!) We hardly needed the courses that followed! After dinner it was back to the bar. I went to bed at 3am and I wasn't even drinking! It was a good night. The hour before it all started Ben and I got all crafty and made some pretty awesome awards for the 'Tracer Sampler Awards 2013' which I had come up with in the down time of my shift! The awards were a blown up rubber glove with the name of the award on one side and something silly on the back (the award for Best Duplicates had 'I like twins' on the back). This was attached to a short bit of tube with half a coke can for the base. They looked surprisingly good! The categories were Lifetime Achievement Award, Best Duplicates, Most Dedicated Sampler, Most Stylish Sampler and the Heavy Lifting Award (this was decided by an arm wrestle between the three nominees). Ben and I presented these in true awkward host and hostess style! It was a good night and pretty much everyone was feeling a little worse for wear this morning! (I am actually feeling quite a bit better today which is a wonderful relief!)

We arrived in Stanley (or Stan-Vagas as the crew call it....) this morning. Gwen and I didn't have to start work until midday (the shifts all got changed around while in port to balance out the work load) So went off towards the Chandlery in search of fresh fruit! Oh the luxury! I also had a list of stuff for our group like baccy for Ben and crisps for Steve. Everyone had something they were really missing! Fruit in the Falklands is super pricey.... but it was sooo worth it after so long without fresh fruit or veg. I did think that a fiver for a mango was pushing it a little though!

However just before I disembarked I was met by a man who introduced himself as Moff, my lovely friend Anna's brother-in-law! What an amazing coincidence! He is here in the Falklands for three weeks as a locum at the hospital. He joined us for a wee wander and on our hunt for fresh fruit. It was lovely to meet him in such unusual settings!

When I got back to the ship it was straight back to the container to run the last load of samples. I finished at 6pm in perfect time for dinner! There was an amazing sunset out the window and the day turned out clear and calm. The quiet of being in port is amazing! It is only when you get away from the ship that you realise just how much noise there is all the time!

So tomorrow is another busy day finishing things up and packing the container. Then probably hitting the flesh-pots of Stan-Vagas in the evening. Or something like that.

I have some great photos of the trip that I will post as soon as I am back in the UK and have internet that takes less than 10mins for each page to load! So if you can just hold on until then I have some lovely things to show you!

Miss you! Cannot wait to see you all again! x x x x x x x x

Lions and tigers and seals... Oh my!

7.30pm Saturday 13th April

South Georgia was magnificent.

Gwen and I woke up like excited children at Christmas. We threw back the curtains to a glorious sunrise over calm seas with rocky peaks rising steep out the water. What a sight for sore eyes! I didn't even mind waking up at 6.15am just to see it! Once the colours had faded and the sun was over the horizon we threw on thermals and jumpers and jackets and scarves and hats and rushed up to Monkey Island to watch the ship steam through the islands into harbour. But by some brilliant stroke of luck all these layers were unnecessary as the air temp was 16 degC above the average for the cruise so far! (cruise average air temperature has been -2 degC and the morning was 14 degC.  During the day it got even hotter!). I hear the UK has been sunbathing too? 20 degC in Norwich? Don't use up ALL the good weather before I get back!

King Edward Point (KEP) BAS base is in Cumberland Bay on the North-East (ish) part of South Georgia. The landscape is reminiscent of the Norwegian Fjords but less lush. Craggy stark pinnacles tower out of the sea, with glaciers snaking round their sides to reach down and touch the water. Some of the peaks were snow capped and catching the morning sun in brilliant white flashes. Those without snow rose up harsh and jagged, but the warm red-tinged rock making them feel less austere. There was little in the way of vegetation as the steep topography and harsh winds strip the land of soil, leaving the bare bones of the land unadorned. There were huge icebergs in the bay adding a pleasing contrast to to warm morning and sunlit land. As we approached the base we could see Grytviken the old whaling station sitting in the shadow of a sharp mountain. The base itself is a series of low white buildings with red roofs that sits on a flat spit out into the bay. It was somewhat surreal to tie up next the building as the shore seems to gently sink into the sea and it does not look even close to deep enough for a big vessel like ours! From the ship we could see groups of seals frolicking at the waters edge. It was very exciting to actually be here and know that soon we would be on shore. It had been suggested as a possibility that maybe we might get to visit South Georgia but I had not let myself hope too much in fear of disappointment. So it was just wonderful to actually be there!

South Georgia has a very pristine environment. So before disembarking we had a briefing about the dos and don'ts. We were told not to even take a pebble from the shore as a souvenir (let alone one of the whale bones that were lying all over the place!) We also had to scrub and disinfect our shoes and check our bags, pockets and even velcro on our clothing for seeds/soils etc. We were also warned about the fur seals, extreme weather South Georgia experiences and about the dangerous condition of the old whaling stations.

So with our boots freshly scrubbed and our pockets and velcro clean we clambered down the gangway and onto solid ground. Hurrah! Gwen and I started walking round the cove towards Grytviken and had not gone 50m when a young seal burst out from behind a tussock of grass to bar the middle of the path! It was a cute wee one trying its best to look intimidating but looking like a big wet pug. We made no move to approach it and it quickly got bored and let us pass. We were just astounded at how close and engaged you can get with the seals here. Quickly we realised that the entire path was lined with seals. Most of them were too sleepy to take much notice as we passed (and took photos) but the occasional one would charge towards us with a wild look in its eye, teeth barred and growling ferociously. Some of them were pretty damn scary!! They can move deceptively fast for such lumbering blubbery creatures. The walk round the cove was a strange mix of being somewhat on edge and on guard, with moments of being mesmerised by your proximity to these wild creatures. Some would calmly let you approach and then just make the cutest sleepy faces at you. My camera is filled with photos of seals sunbathing belly up or blinking sleepily from atop a tuft of grass or messing about in the water. Lovely creatures! They were constantly calling to each other, making a big noise for such chubby wee things. They have disconcertingly  human voices and sound like someone crying out for help. The whole valley echoed with them.

Our plan for the day was a walk in the morning, head back to the ship for lunch then explore Grytviken, the museum and the base in the afternoon. So we wandered on through Grytviken and round the cove towards the cemetery. The cemetery is surrounded by a white picket fence and stood out bright in the sunny morning. Shackleton is buried here with a beautiful stone memorial. At his side is Frank Wild his right hand man, whose ashes were moved here a few years ago. There was a large group of us from the ship at the graveside and it was a strange atmosphere. We were all there to have a drink with the Boss.* I like the concept of this tradition. Its like a pilgrimage or something and gives you a way to show your respect but that embraces the character of the person. The sun was streaming down and we stood around the grave with beers and a somewhat elated feeling at actually being here. But there was also a very respectful, almost awed, atmosphere. Having just travelled from Elephant Isle to South Georgia, and having seen the sheer mountainous terrain of the island, the reality of Shackletons journey is just breathtaking. I felt quite deeply affected by being at his grave and I think everyone else did too.

*  (I hope he won't be offended that I stuck to orange squash as I a) can't drink beer as it contains gluten and b) I am still on tramadol!)

Gwen and I planned on walking round the coast to Penguin River to see a penguin colony there. But after walking a bit more round the cove we changed our minds as there were just too many het up fur seals for it to be a relaxing walk in the sun. So instead we clambered up to a flatter area at the feet of the really steep mountains and roughly headed towards Penguin River/Discovery Point.  The Sun was absolutely beating down and we down to vest-tops and sunglasses at one point! We stopped for a wee chocolate break and to take in the view next to a friendly skua who was perched on a perfect look out point. The panorama was astounding. Towering mountains, rusting whaling station, glaciers, icebergs, calm water reflecting the ship and skyline in perfect symmetry, seals, sunshine.... etc etc etc. Apparently it rains 300 days a year there and has hurricane winds frequently (possibly even worse than Lewis!). Somehow we visited on just a perfect day! The morning walk was lovely. It had been pretty boggy underfoot at times but the weather and the landscape was thoroughly rejuvenating. We even went for a wee paddle in Gull Lake. Cold. It was very cold. Very very cold.

In the afternoon we again ran the seal gauntlet and headed round the cove to Grytviken. The old whaling station has a funny atmosphere. It is monstrous piles of rusting machinery, some of which you would rather not imagine what it could have been used for. The scale of everything is strange too. Against the backdrop of mountains it seems small and unthreatening but up close the saws and oil drums tower over you. There is a small museum in one of the buildings which, as well as going into graphic detail about whaling (shudder), has some lovely rooms about the discovery and exploration of the island. There were some beautiful old charts and maps on the walls and photographs of Shackleton and other explorers. We also took the time to have a wander round the small church at the back of Grytviken. It is quite simple inside but filled with tributes that have been left for Shackleton. In the back of the church was a small library filled with beautiful old Norwegian books. The entire place was charming and simple but with the rich history of South Georgia very evident.

So how would you top off such an incredible day? How about a BBQ under the stars? Yes please! The base has set up a very impressive row of huge flaming BBQs. They had a low trough for a brazier to stand round as the evening started to get cold. The ship supplied an impressive array of salads and beers. The base provided piles of meat including reindeer steaks! People are still talking about just how amazing the reindeer was! The food was actually quite nice for vegie coeliac me too. After loads of heavy spicy meals on the ship a simple salad was a welcome change. So we stood around glowing fires on the shore of South Georgia, tucking into reindeer (and salad!) with the sky was blazing with stars above us. The milky way was a shining banner across the sky and the air was filled with the crackling of the fire and the calling of fur seals. The base people were really nice and I made friends with the resident seal poo expert and the helicopter pilot. Pretty cool huh?!

The next morning dawned cold and clear and the bay around us had a skin of ice on it. This made for beautiful reflections of the sunlit mountains. We waved goodbye to South Georgia at 7am and spent most of the morning steaming past the island. Watching the landscape of South Georgia through the container window made my shift much more bearable. Mountains and glaciers and sunshine. I spent a bit of time between samples out on deck watching macaroni penguins messing around in the wake of the ship. They are lovely silly looking things!

5pm Tuesday 16th April

I must apologise that it has taken me so long to post this. I have a multitude of reasons (/excuses!) After South Georgia I got really ill for a couple of days as my coeliacs kicked into gear. So with that and the back pain I was pretty knocked out at the end of shift. I am feeling better now though (of course my back is still horrendous). It has also taken me a bit of time to condense down the whole South Georgia experience. I have only an hour or so each afternoon free to write stuff for this lovely blog so have been doing a few paragraphs a day. Hopefully this means it is less of a rambling stream of consciousness than I might have produced the day after! Work is a little manic. It takes us 6 hours to run one CTD cast... and this section we have been having CTDs every 3-4 hours. We have quite a backlog. It has been pretty intense.

The end is starting to feel in sight now. I won't be home till the 1st of May and we have a mega ton of work to get through before we get there. Before none of us could really think much beyond South Georgia but with the island far in our wake it is only the thought of home someday soon that pushes on through the day! Days seem to all merge together here. Often the only was to tell what day it is today by what you get for dinner. Fish Friday. Steak Saturday. Curry night Sunday. Etc etc. It feels like I have been at sea forever and yet also feels like I have only just started.

Seriously guys it would be soooooooo nice to hear from you! Post a comment or email me. I don't really mind if you don't have much to say. It would just be nice to hear your voice. Metaphorically at least.

Besos x x x x x x

Fear and Loathing in Las Scotia Sea

1pm Monday 8th April

So today I took loads of drugs and whiteyed on shift.

But my dear reader before you jump to any wild assumptions about what I have been getting up to please allow me to tell you the full story...

The past wee while I have been struggling with nasty back pain. My back has always been pretty rubbish and (surprisingly) I am not particularly accustomed to the heavy lifting I need to do here. My back had been getting steadily more painful as time went on and a trapped nerve in my back was giving me sharp bursts of pain and shifting patches of numbness and pins and needles. Not cool. At the end of shift I would spend about 20 mins doing yoga/pilates stretches to try and loosen things up. But after a few days I realised that ibuprofen and yoga just wasn't working and I spoke to John the ships doctor about it. He kept me on ibuprofen but also gave me some Co-Dydramol. Alas after a week it was clear that this too was not working. Yesterday I could barely stand upright and nearly had a disaster with the liquid nitrogen as my back spasmed at just the wrong moment. I resorted to strapping my hot water bottle to my back for the rest of my shift. So at the end of my shift I went to speak to John again and he put me Tramadol 4 times a day and Diazipam before bed. Quite honestly I felt amazing! I woke up today full of beans and feeling pretty damn good about life. I still had a bit of a painful back but my movement was much freer and I was less drained by the pain. I was flying! But at around 10am my blood pressure plummeted and I got all dizzy, sick and faint. And spent most of the rest of the day in bed feeling horrendous. I am sure there is a moral to the story here but I am still too hopped up on meds to know what it is....

5pm Wednesday 10th April

Still on the Tramadol. I tried without then I tried other meds but Tramadol is really the only one that takes the edge off enough that I can work. I am still in quite a bit of pain so I am very careful with how I work and fingers crossed I won't make it any worse.

We are heading north towards South Georgia on a long line of CTDs (We are going to have a day at King Edward Point on Friday! EXTREMELY excited!) we are a little backlogged with samples but things have been running fairly smoothly. I have even managed to do a little extra-curricular work (matlab – yuck)! However I have still only ready half of one of the 20 papers I brought to read in my imagined 'free-time'.

We are no longer in ice floes and I do miss the shifting landscape and dynamic wildlife. However we are now in Big Berg country. Each day brings a new spectacle of icy islands and floating fortresses. The sheer size of some of them is staggering, and the diversity of form and colour is captivating. A few days ago Gwen went up to Monkey Island just after breakfast and counted 48 huge icebergs surrounding the ship. This morning there was an enormous slab off the back of the ship. It was far away but still took up 15% of the horizon. It had huge cave systems carved into the cliff walls and a microclimate overhead. Just above it sat this long thin white cloud which was striking against the charcoal sky.

This evening the sun set over an ice palace with towering turrets and shining spires. The sky was a glowing dusky pink painted with wispy swirls of cloud. After a long and tiring shift taking the time to watch the sunset has a wonderfully rejuvenating effect.

Well folks. Apologies for being remiss in my blog duties. I have been too knocked out with pain (and drugs) by the end of shift to focus on writing to you. Will you forgive me?

Peace x x x x x

Things that go bump in the night....

6pm Wednesday 3rd April

Well sorry chaps, its been a while!

Today is our last day in amongst the ice. I am going to be pretty gutted tomorrow to wake up and just sea the ocean out my window rather than the stunning ice sculptures of the past few days. There have been lots of moorings recovered and redeployed and poor Paul has been working night and day! Warm in our container we look out at them working on deck in the worsening conditions and even after 8 hours of tedious calibrations we feel pretty lucky!

We have actually been fairly busy. Since the moorings cannot be deployed at night there have been  lots of CTDs and we have been running the samples in the day.  We don't find any of our tracer in this region (and didn't expect to) so have been taking lots of samples for CFC measurements. We are most interested in SF6 and F12 because we can plot the ratio of these to produce a fairly accurate record of water age.  We have also been trying to improve Barbarella by changing the shape of the trap that gets lowered into the liquid nitrogen to trap the gas we sparge (bubble) out of the seawater. However after a long day of calibrations we concluded that the new trap was in fact worse. And now we cannot find the old trap anywhere! Marie-Jo put it somewhere safe..... so safe she can't remember where! (note – trap was found... turns out the problem was that the trap had been carefully labelled and put in the drawer marked 'traps'.... so obviously no one expected to find it there!)

The wind has been very strong the past couple of days. The ice floes stabilise the water around so the ship is fairly still with only the occasional lurch and judder as we go over a particularly large lump of ice. In my cabin you can hear lots of banging as chunks of ice hit the ship. It has been grey and snowy and a little dreich. The first few days in the ice were stunning. Bright, clear and bloody freezing. A couple of days the air temp was minus 10 (out of the wind) and everything was freezing on deck. Including the ships anemometer! The sea around us and in between the bergs turned into a giant slush-puppy.  But today things have been pretty wet and (relatively) mild. We appear to have left the penguins behind us with the nice weather and have only the occasional seal or distant whale for company. The sky is still filled with petrels; cape petrels, snow petrels and giant petrels. The giant petrels are huge prehistoric looking birds that seem to move in lazy slow motion.

The plan is to navigate out of the ice during the night and then steam south-east towards the start of the next section.  So fingers crossed I should have a little time off! There was an announcement earlier to say that tonight we will be leaving the ice floes and heading back out to the open ocean. We were warned to 'batten down the hatches' as it were and reminded that we are on a ship. There has been very little in the way of rocking and rolling while in the ice. So I have got out of 'ship' habits. These are key things like only filling a mug of tea half full, or holding onto the rail while washing your hair, and  not putting things down on surfaces and expecting them to still be there a moment later.

As I write there have been some enormous crashes and jumps and scrapings. The huge shudders and bangs in the ice at night can be pretty alarming actually.

Anyway enough about me. What news from the western front? Has spring sprung yet? How are you? Is life falling apart without me?!

Love love love x x x x

As Tahmeena said if you check out the dimesuk4 blog you will see a rather awesome photo of me in a grey coat leaning over to photo the whale, which is massive in the water next to me! You can also read all about the excitement from the morning of April the first......