I awake to the phone ringing loudly next to me. Since discovering the blackout blind in my cabin, I have been sleeping rather too well and was roused from a very deep sleep, and a dream that I only vaguely remember involving penguins and murderers (I have been watching The Killing recently which explains the latter topic). Anyway, it’s the Chief Officer, who apologises for waking me at 4.30am but tells me there are a number of humpback whales messing about near the ship and that he thought I might like to see them. I feel a huge sense of relief - the last time I was being woken by phonecalls at 4.30am was in Tanzania and it generally involved someone trying to die. I briefly toy with the idea of heading up in my pyjamas for fear I will miss them if I'm not quick, but dismiss this idea swiftly after remembering the number of comments I got when I turned up at a fire drill carrying my boiler suit and wearing white and blue spotted pyjamas and safety boots – in my defence I was in the shower at the time of the alarm and thought I had done rather well to muster as quickly as I had. Luckily my clothes were usefully strewn around the bedroom floor where I had filed them carefully the night before, and I was soon up on the Bridge. The whales really were very close to the ship, showing no signs of going anywhere and putting on quite the show. I then had the dilemma of whether to wake the 2nd engineer, who had definitely mentioned wanting to see whales, but hadn’t specifically stated this would be the case at 4.30am. However, as one popped his head out of the water and another one showed off his tail, I decided that no one would rather be asleep than whale watching. They stayed around the ship for over an hour and only headed off when the science work that had been going on was over and the ship had to move. I totally failed to take my camera and have therefore had to steal a couple of pictures from Rich, who takes much better pictures than me anyway.
Apart from that, the science work has continued in earnest and has involved collecting and dropping off mooring buoys, fishing for krill and then measuring them or watching them for a bit before dissecting out their stomachs, calibrating echo sounding equipment and doing lots of other measurements using complicated and expensive kit with 3 letter acronyms. Clearly I've still failed to discover the finer details of the science work, but one of the scientists on the ship is writing a far more educational blog than me and explains it all much better than I ever could. I will therefore continue with my usual inane mutterings and direct you to her site for all things science related.
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| A sediment trap being brought onboard having been sat in the sea for about a year (collecting sediment I would assume - I am indeed a font of scientific knowledge) |
In order to do the calibrating we had to head in close to South Georgia and therefore got to have a look at the old whaling station at Stromness. Unfortunately, the tightness of the schedule meant no trips ashore were possible, so all pictures had to be taken from afar with a ridiculously large lens. Rather disappointingly a cruise ship turned up in the afternoon and started ferrying passengers ashore for a closer look round and a wander up the very pleasant looking valley (which I believe is where Shackleton came down after his epic walk across the island). Hopefully I will get back there one day.
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| Stromness as seen from the safety of the ship |
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| What's left of the whaling station - lots of asbestos means no one can go near it these days and it is rapidly disintegrating |
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| Shackleton's valley - guarded by a rather large seal and reindeer contingent |
I have been mostly occupying my time by indulging my passion for laminating and have now made new signs for the cupboards in the surgery and for all the little boxes containing fuses in the electrician’s workshop (seems there are over a hundred different types of fuse on this ship!).
Apparently, if I’m really lucky I may even be allowed to make signs for all the stuff in the engineers’ store.
That will be a lot of laminating.
I'm keeping my fingers crossed they decide I can be trusted to spend time down near the engines without pressing buttons or introducing an evil-looking white cat and pretending I'm in a Bond film.
