Leaving Bird Island and adventures

On Monday morning the “big red taxi” arrived at Bird Island.  This is the new polar research ship, the RRS Sir David Attenborough (the SDA).  I’ve not seen her before as she was still being built last time I came South, so I am pretty excited to be travelling home on her. 

The day of the last ship before winter dawned grey and foggy…

…and the SDA appeared out of the gloom like a huge red shadow.  

  

Boats were soon sent ashore and we all set to work.  The last ship call of the season is always busy as all the cargo and waste from the summer season has to be dragged down to the end of the jetty by hand to be shipped away and supplies come in for the four people who are staying for the winter.  Additional people from the ship come ashore to help out.

After a long and busy day, the work was complete, and the nine of us that were departing, said our fond farewells to the winterers and headed onboard the SDA.  Some people have been at Bird Island for 18 months, and the Bird Island family of friends becomes torn apart so this is always a bit of an emotional time for everyone as people head back to the big wide world.

The new SDA ship is enormous, very new and very civilised, rather like a floating hotel!  We were given our cabins and soon settled in.  Overnight we set sail, heading east along the north coast of South Georgia, towards the research station there at King Edward Point.  The weather had also decided it was winter, and by the next morning, snow had started to fall, both back at Bird Island, and on the ship.

South Georgia is breathtakingly beautiful and the journey to King Edward point was filled with lovely icebergs.  The weather here is notably much sunnier than at Bird Island, despite only being approximately 50 miles along the coastline.    

As the ship was ahead of schedule we detoured round to get a glimpse of some of the disused whaling stations that are present at Leith, Stromness and Husvik from the ship along the way. 

These are protected sites (and very dangerous) so we were not allowed to land, but it was lovely to get a glimpse of them from onboard.  Afterwards we continued to King Edward Point, where we are staying for a few days.  We have been having some fun expeditions here, so I’ll put some pictures of our adventures there on the next blog.  Meanwhile the webcam is still up and running for those wanting to follow the journey. 

https://www.bas.ac.uk/data/our-data/images/webcams/rrs-sir-david-attenborough-webcam/