#which is!! like 20 glass and 30 titanium!! and i dont plan my bases so i never have space to put that many rooms!!! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

hellogreenergrass · 7 years

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Signy Island - Week Seven

22nd Jan – Sunday

Lie ins are lush. I feel renewed. This last week Ive been firing on ½ my cylinders I think. Not sure why, but after a month of full speed, I think I needed to take my foot off the peddle. I’ve been effectively part time this week, with days out to help Stacey not counting as work. But today I will end an easy week with a flourish. I will have A WHOLE DAY OFF. No lab, no thinking of work, no field treks. Just cooking, some rowing, writing and photography. Stacey took my early this morning as she had to get up early anyway to sort out some krill samples (she does this so the rest of us dont have to endure the stench that seeps out from her lab!). I owe her bigly. Oh yes, and Donald Trump was sworn in on Friday. I feel like we are entering a dystopian novel. He was greeted by ½ million people marching in protest through Washington DC. It will be an interesting presidency. A few weeks ago, we all made wishes as we threw wood into a fire and collectively decided that we wished a rapid and ultimately dooming impeachment upon him…

I’ve been drawing most days, but on the whiteboard in the living room as well as my sketch book. It started as a small pic of something for whoever was on earlies that day. Then Stacey asked for a woodland as she missed trees, and I drew a landscape of a birch stand next to a river that wound down from some hills in the distance. On the other side of the river stands an old oak tree with branches that reach out over a waterfall. Since then, each day I add something else at the request of whoever is on earlies. We now have bluebells and harebells, sheep, a wolf, a peacock, a monkey, highland cows, a llama, a rabbit, and a bear. Iain & Stacey drew me a small hedgehog and some butterflies last night. Looking at it one night, Matt said he’d like me to do something for the new base they are building in the next few years. He will give some thought to what. Nice to think my work would be here even if I am not!

Meowntains - new word combining two of my loves, cats and mountains. If there is a heaven …

24th Jan

This month is flying by! Cant believe its almost February. And Im almost 34. Jeez. Have been a bit slack at writing in this lately. I put my diary in a drawer in my room and whenever I have the presence of mind to remember it, I either couldn’t be bothered or get distracted en route. So now Im making an effort over brekkie.

The last few days have largely been lab/office based. I spent Monday trying to update my field plan for the coming month and reworking some experiments. The grid plan has had a reboot, less elegant now, but also less work. I hope. I’ve been reading the work of a chap called Smith (we don’t do first names in scientific literature!) who has been working on Marion Island in the sub-Antarctic Indian Ocean area. His work spans 30 years from a word mapped food web to today, actual raw data on the energy and nutrient flow on the island. I’d love to do something like that here on Signy. He compiled data on all the input from major wildlife contributors and how the plants use it or lose it. Where it runs off the Island or gets blown back in, and the likely fate of it in the oceans. Science like that makes me heart all a flutter!

Aqlima and I went out to look for adult midge on Monday, to no avail. Although she really enjoys looking for them as she works with essentially invisible bacteria, so bugs are massive and remarkably charismatic for her! I think the adults are finished now. Where they go to die I couldn’t tell you as I’ve stopped seeing them in my soil samples too. Add that to the bank of mysteries and unanswerable questions I am accruing this season. I’ve also started going out to collect a species of mite for Scott (my boss back in Brum). He wants to do some population genetics on them. But whilst Ive started collections, Im not sure we can amend my permit again to take them off the island. Can but ask though.

Iain and I spent a few hours out yesterday getting in the last of the soil cores. Sun shone, the wind blew and the innuendo flowed! Down at the site in the unfortunately named Gash Cove, we went down onto the rocks and stood in the sun watching the huge swell roll up a slope of glistening rock the colour of titanium and almost iridescent. It was a slab of mica-schist, mica being the mineral that gives the glitter to eye shadow. It had been buffered smooth by the waves who slid up the slope many meters and then recoiled back to the ocean excessively exposing an area of rocks and shore rarely seen, like the draw back of a tidal wave, or the curled snarl of lip. It was hypnotic. No furries around here, which is odd. In fact numbers have dropped off again, which Im told is unusual.

Im off to Gourlay today. Day out on my todd. The sun is shining, but its still blowing a hooley. I’ll collect that mite (Alaskozetes antarcticus) and spot sample the route for my midge along the way. Have lunch at the huts out there and see the penguins, then pop down to Cemetery Flats on my way home for more samples. Just me myself and I. Should be a nice day out J

26th Jan

I twisted my ankle!! Not even a little bit, but a proper sprain with swellings and everything! I’d been to Gourlay, hiked back and collected all the samples. Then as I stood at the top of the Stonechute, the final rock and scree descent to base, I recalled Stacey’s recent tale of her twisting her ankle just meters from base whilst carrying a heavy load. It was just a 2cm drop off a rock, but put her off her feet for weeks. I pondered this as I heaved my loaded rucksack on, weighed down by kilos of soil samples, decided not to withdraw my second walking pole and dove down the chute. Despite being just a few hundred meters from home and the first and last part of everyone’s day out, it is one of the riskiest bits. Not least because as well as being steep and loose, it is often full of fur seals. And it was furries that I was checking for as I misplaced my footing and went over on the side of my foot.

I knew immediately that it was not good as I sat trying to catch my breath that had just been dragged from me by the rushing and unweilding pain. Not again I thought. Just last July, I’d gone over on my left leg and torn any remaining shreds of ligament and cartilagein my knee whilst up in the mountains of Norway and out on my own. At least this time I had VHF radio and base in sight. I realised I was going to need help. No way was I carrying that bag across the boulders of the high-tide route. I called in and Alex and Stacey came out to help me back down. I slowly and carefully negotiated my way back, and an hour of ice and elevation followed by a shower seem to have eased it a bit. As have the painkillers. And the 2 glasses of gin I just had. So now I feel just fine!

27th Jan

Woke to stiffness and a substantial amount of pain this morning, but thankfully this eased as the day went on. Although the swelling has peaked and there is some bruising coming through now. I’ll be a few shades of purple soon. At least I actually did something, hate to think Im being melodramatic! I have to try and go out to do some field work tomorrow though, not sure how likely that is, I can’t walk properly. I’ve prepped the ion-exchange membranes already and they have a limited amount of time to be used you see. I did the last of the work whilst watching Seven Years in Tibet tonight in anticipation of being able to at least stagger along in the field with some back-up tomorrow. Great movie, and by God that man. I swear Brad Pitt must have hovered up all the good-looking genes in his family for the best part of a century. The mind boggles. Speaking of good looking men, I spoke to K today. He’s been offered a new job! Interview was at 11am, with two others to follow him and by 2pm they’d made up their mind and called to offer him the position. I’m not surprised, he has that effect on people ;-)

Wind is still blowing hard and finding its way into the cracks and gaps in the seams of the cabin. Makes the whole place scream and whistle all the time. Some flights from Punto Arenas in Chile to Rothera on the Peninsular have been delayed. I wonder if they have the same weather system. Few thousand km away though. Its been quite unstable the last few weeks, but we are about to enter the warmest month of the year soon, so at least it may stop snowing even the wind keeps up its run of 20+ knots!

#antarctica

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