Larsen Harbour
There is no secret why more charter boats are not doing what we do on Vinson. It is not everyone’s ‘cup of tea.’ After a glorious 800 mile downwind sail from the Falkland Islands, running ‘wing and wing’ (both jibs out on the poles and the mainsails down) we ran down the course keeping the bow on a rising, but waning moon in the evenings and the sun breaking the horizon in the mornings. We made shelter in four days flat; a passage that was an ‘icing on the cake’ right from the beginning. Along the track, the team lounged about the deck in the sunshine in amongst soaring albatross and flitting petrels, carefree and meditative temporarily released from their responsibilities and worries landside.
Running ‘wing and wing’
However, we are now one week out and still far from our target of the active volcanic Zavodovski Island in the Sound Sandwich chain. We are anchored in Larsen Harbour, a deep fjord and storm haven at the south end of the main island of South Georgia. It is blowing 40 knots on the outside with a 6/7 meter swell running. We have been here three days. Storm bound, the reality of the Southern Ocean has truly set. The wind whips through the rigging with Vinson snatching at the anchor cable in gusts of 50 knots. It has been raining on and off since we arrived and frankly it is miserable.
If you don’t ignore the planning and bureaucracy to actually get a permit to do such a project, (a year in the making), along with an unexpected self -imposed five day Covid quarantine for the science team upon arrival in Stanley which caused a week delay in the departure, you realize early on the extent of the commitment. There is a lot at stake in people’s time and in several entity’s pockets.
This delay in Stanley was fortuitous in one sense, as that the base camp preparation for an eight to 10 day stint ashore was done in a leisurely fashion over a week and not in the usual panic a few days before departure. The on shore focus is on two disciplines, volcanology and penguinology including censusing and tagging. My job was to organize the camp equipment that between tentage, safety equipment, food, water, fuel, communication gear and more culminated in 60 pieces of equipment on the load manifest. All this needs to be landed on a precarious ledge on the southeast corner of the island that you jump for from the dinghy on the top of a heave as the ocean rises and falls. Followed by a scramble up a slippery gulley that brings you to flattish ground a campsite must be quickly established before the weather worsens which it always will do. At this point the team can at least survive ashore, but there is more work to be done.
Zavodoski Island (South Sandwich Islands)
As a safety officer (Expedition Leader in the parlance) I have to call the landing ‘yes or no’ with input from Dion Poncet who knows these islands better than anyone and will be doing the critical dinghy driving. It all depends on the condition of wind and more so the swell which is ever present around an island only five kilometers in diameter. The team has to set up the working camp in amongst the 1.5 million chinstrap penguins that inhabit one of the most prolific but isolated communities of fauna of anywhere in the world.
Sketches by Lt.Cmdr. J. Irving. h. View of West Bluff from the S: bearing 000º,distant 2 miles. g. another view of West Bluff from S:bearing 346º, distant 2-5 miles.
So, as you can begin to appreciate, a delay on board of three days in getting to the island to start work, begins to wear thin and although the conditions were obviously a non-starter in doing this last leg to the island, people begin to get anxious.
So, it is time to get moving. We leave this afternoon, despite in not completely optimal sea conditions. We hope to land on the 22nd of 23rd during a short lull in what appears to be a relentless succession of low pressure systems charging through our latitudes.
We have thought of everything. But we will need a good dose of luck with the weather to pull this off.
Skip Novak
Expedition leader
