Each jet boat has a liferaft that has to be sent out each year for servicing. So we decided to deploy one, for training purposes, before it was sent back on the Shackleton. That’s eight people inside having done a ‘dry boarding’ from the side of the jet boat. There is a small ladder (you can see it on the inside of the raft) that you can use to get in from the water but there are obvious advantages if you can keep it dry inside!

Here’s James after doing a ‘wet boarding’. He has some history with liferafts and the southern ocean. During his time as a fisheries observer living in the Falklands he spent time at sea on the fishing vessels making sure the correct quotas were being caught etc. He was on board one such vessel when problems arose that the foreign Captain blamed on James, for being ‘bad luck’. I guess the spanish don’t consider the Irish to be good luck charms! He was then put off the ship in the middle of the Southern ocean, in the middle of the night,  into an old life raft that had been tucked away somewhere on the ship and blown up (by mouth) by a couple of crew members moments before. Not long after the ship disappeared into the night, leaving James adrift in the southern ocean, another ship came along and picked him up. Obviously a part of the plan but not one that James was aware of!

Emma dismounting the life raft in the graceful and elegant way that we have come to expect from her.

Team Science take it in turns to dunk each other… not something that had to be done.  The water temp is about 1 degree by the way. Not sure if that is excitement or sheer terror on Steph’s face.

James really didn’t enjoy having to dunk Steph’s head into the icy water.

I guess it’s quite cold judging by Steph’s face! James now enjoying every moment and making his way to safety behind Steve (our new Government Officer). Three great, but very different, expressions on the faces in this photo.

A few days before the big exodus Deirdre gave us the ‘Shackleton talk’. Full of great stories and tales from his time visiting Grytviken and also about his death while here in 1922. I thought I knew a bit about him and the expeditions but most of it was new to me.

With lots of people on the island there were a few of us itching to get a game of football in, not quite ‘whatever the weather’ but close to enough! The pitch is… an interesting mix of bog at one end and gravel at the other. The gravel was deposited after the old dam burst years ago and left several feet of the stuff on one half of the pitch. Apparently there was so much deposited that the crossbar was only three feet above the ground.

As you can see I wasn’t joking about the bog. By this time I’d dropped any hope of keeping my feet dry. If you look closely Dickie can be seen wearing gaiters. That might look silly but it begs the question why? Can you see the small plant on the pitch with the brown/red head on it? Well thats the reason for the gaiters…

It’s called burnet! Amazing stuff, if not slightly annoying, I don’t think anyone got away with leaving the pitch without some of it on them. Ian probably had the most impressive display though.

Keiron (Government Operations Manager) and Simon (GO) possibly having a tactical discussion should they be up next. But the reason for the photo is Bob’s face on the left. I’m not sure what he’s seen or heard but it’s clearly shocking hahah.

Sarah pretty much kicked everyone’s butt at limbo. Maybe it’s because of the enthusiastic support she had from husband Simon – I’m sure at one point he was mirroring Sarah’s stance.

The last game was to ‘plank’ between two stools while passing another around your body as many times in 60 seconds as you could. Yours truly coming out on top in this one, 41 rotations if you’re interested. Doddy, black top central in the background, came close with 39 (I think).

There goes the Shack, with a volley of flares to see her off. Hours before there were several containers on the wharf blocking the way and people everywhere, well at least in South Georgia terms it was busy.

A subscriber put ‘cute things’ in the ‘interests’ box when signing up a while back. So here you go, that is if you find fur seals cute! Took this with the wide angle lens (14mm) so I’m actually right next to him while taking this, not that they are bothered.

It’s that time of year again, when the night sky gets more and more impressive. I took this up at Hope Point, where Shackleton’s men erected a cross in his memory, looking out over Cumberland East Bay. The Milky Way is only just visible, that’s the pay off for the moon being out.

There you go, no moon = Milky Way. Took this in front of the comms tower. It’s an ugly thing but adds a lot to night shots, especially timelapses… in my opinion any way.

Ian (pictured), Ray, James and myself left base on a beautiful Sunday morning hoping to get up Petrel peak and take some photos (possibly my favourite photo I’ve taken since I’ve been here is of this peak – it’s on the ‘home’ and SG ‘landscape’ pages if you don’t know it). So I was hoping with a little more snow around I might be able to improve on it, not so! The cloud came in and spoiled that idea.

Late in the month we got just enough snow to get out on the skis, hopefully this is just the beginning of a good season for snow. Some thought had to go into routes given the thin covering but so long as you kept to grassy areas it was ok. Thats Ian again looking over the Cove with the whaling station on the left and KEP on the right.

After the exodus we had a few days of putting things back in place and winterising various buildings etc. One of the nicer jobs was to take down a couple of bunk beds and take them to the new hut at Coral.

The new hut is twice the size of the old one and a couple of Ikea bunk beds make it feel quite homely.

It wasn’t a coincidence the weather was nice, we had waited to do the job on a nice day. The light winds allowed me to anchor ‘Pipit’ in the middle of the bay and then beach the RIB while we put the bunks up.

While Ray and Adam put the bunks up inside it gave Emma, Sarah and I a few minutes to make sure the mattresses were in working order by sitting on them drinking coffee in the sun.. someone’s got to do it!

I had to wade into the water to get the low angle over the water here. Think this is my shot of the month, hope some of you agree.. other wise there’s two reasons to call me Captain Numbnuts!

We take it in turn to get up and do earlies at 6am each morning. This means walking around base, making sure all is ok and then making bread for the day. It’s properly dark at 6am now but by the time you get round, about 30 mins later, it’s beginning to get light. The righthand end of the long building is the James Cook Laboratory with the labs and offices and the lefthand end is Everson House where BAS live, with the bar, dining room and kitchen as well. The far lefthand end is Shackleton Villa where Steve lives.

The end of the month has seen some incredible weather, not a breath of wind or sight of a cloud for several days. I’m going on holiday next week, wonder what the chances are of getting weather like this?!

Same view again but with some sea ice beginning to form, clouds, moon and stars. Day or night it’s not hard to take nice photos, so long as the weather is decent.