South Georgia Newsletter, January 2009

From South Georgia Website

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1982 War Veteran Visit

Bob Ashton was one of the Royal Marines at King Edward Point (KEP) when the Argentines invaded in 1982. He returned to visit the Island this month with his wife Nina.

Bob first visited the South Atlantic region in 1978 when he was stationed in the Falkland Islands. In 1982 Bob was one of the small party of Royal Marines (RMs) aboard “HMS Endurance”, working as the ship’s butcher. The ship came to South Georgia and Bob and other RMs were deployed from the ship to monitor the activities of the Argentine scrap metal merchants in the Stromness Bay area.

On March 31st 1982 “HMS Endurance” was ordered to sail to the Falklands. Before she left, Bob and twenty-one other RMs, under the command of Lt Keith Mills, were landed at KEP. Two days later, when news reached them of the invasion of the Falkland Islands, the men made defensive preparations.

Bob, a machine gunner, and his No. 2 Jock Thompson, dug a shell scrape in the grassy area behind ‘Quigleys’ cottage. The next day an Argentine helicopter appeared suddenly over Hope Point, sending the men running for their trenches. Argentine troops were being landed at Grytviken by helicopter. Bob thinks he may have been the first person to open fire when the order was given. He fired several magazines at an Argentine Puma helicopter, forcing it to crash land on the slopes below Brown Mountain, before continuing fire on the ship “Guerrico”.

Later that day, faced with overwhelming numbers of enemy forces, no means of escape and with one Royal Marine badly injured, Lt Keith Mills ordered his men to lay down their arms and went to negotiate surrender terms.

The men spent the next fortnight as prisoners aboard the Argentine ship “Bahia Paraiso” before being landed in Argentina. They were repatriated to the UK shortly after. Just a month later Bob arrived back in South Georgia aboard the cable-ship “Iris” to rejoin “HMS Endurance”.

On June 20th Bob was one of the small party of Royal Marines landed by helicopter on Southern Thule in the South Sandwich Islands. They quickly removed the 12 Argentineans occupying a small base there, and raised the British flag.

Bob has been assisted to return to South Georgia by GSGSSI. He and his wife travelled on the Fishery Patrol Vessel “Pharos SG” and spent a fortnight staying at the Government Officer accommodation ‘Carse House’.

Bob said he wanted to show his wife the places where he had been and see what had happened to South Georgia since 1982. He said he is pleased to find that the people involved in running the Island are passionate about preserving what is special about the place.

Bob and Nina have spent much of their time walking, but also took on the job of refurbishing the three memorial crosses at Hope Point that commemorate soldiers who died whilst stationed on South Georgia between 1982 and 2000. They also refurbished the nearby Shackleton memorial cross.

Work Starts On Biosecurity Building

Construction has started on the new two-room biosecurity building at King Edward Point. The 64m−square building has been designed by Darren Christie of South Georgia Government to help with biosecurity on the Island. One room is a ‘clean room’ in which general cargo and high-risk things like imported fruit and vegetables can be checked through for seeds, insects etc that may be capable of establishing themselves at South Georgia if mishandled. The area will also be used for cleaning science and camping gear between different sites. The other room will be a store, and outside there will be a vehicle wash down area.

A five-person building team from the Falkland Islands arrived on January 26th to construct the kit building. They had already started pouring the concrete floors by the end of the month. The new facility is being jointly funded by the Overseas Territories Environment Programme, the EU SAISP (South Atlantic Invasive Species Programe) and the Government of South Georgia.

Fishing And Shipping News

January was a busy shipping month in Cumberland Bay with 41 port entries.

One Icefish trawler licensed at the end of last month had started off with poor catches but quickly caught their Total Allowable Catch once they found the fish, and left the fishery on January 6th. Three further trawlers arrived for inspection and licensing between January 12th and 15th. With poor catches and bad weather, two of the vessels returned to anchor off Hope Point for a few days to conserve fuel and wait for the more favourable moon phase.

Five additional scientific staff joined the Icefish trawler “Sil” to conduct the annual GSGSSI research-fishing cruise.

18 cruise ships visited, bringing a total of 2308 passengers during the month. One vessel, “Prince Albert II”, was under charter for an educational trip by 89 American students aged 15 – 18. A visit to the science base at KEP had been arranged, and scientists from the base also went aboard the ship to give a talk on their work here.

There were visits from two research ships: the BAS ship “RRS James Clark Ross” called on January 3rd to take on cargo and waste and collect one passenger; and the NERC (Natural Environment Research Council) ship “RRS James Cook” called on January 17th.

Seven yachts have been visiting this month and one, “Wanderer III”, is planning to over-winter at South Georgia.

Buttercups And Beasties

Six scientists have spent a month on an expedition to study the endemic and invasive species of South Georgia. The four botanists from the ‘Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew’, and two entomologists representing ‘Buglife International’, may well end up adding several new species of insects and plants to the list of those known to live on the Island.

They arrived at the Island aboard the yacht “Seal” at the end of December and worked along the north-west coast sampling 177 sites at 18 different locations. Both teams were interested to study the local endemic plants or insects, but the main thrust of the project was to map the presence of invasive species to form a baseline for future studies. They were particularly interested in the areas most occupied or visited by man, as these are where introductions are most likely to have been made. The “Introduced Species Survey” was funded by the European Union, and is a collaboration between the UK charity RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) and GSGSSI.

The botanists were also collecting the seeds of the endemic plants for storage in the Kew Millennium Seed Bank. Around 10,000 seeds from each plant are required. As it was still early in the season for many plants, they have arranged for Kicki Ericson, on yacht “Wanderer III”, to continue the seed collections. They will store the collected seeds in a special portable seed bank until they can be sent to Kew. The Millennium Seed Bank is now in its final year of a ten-year project aiming to collect and store seeds from 10% of the worlds plant species.

During their visit the scientists were subject to the full range of South Georgia weather. They resorted to using survival bothy bags at Husvik when extreme winds prevented them being picked up from the beach for four hours. And near Cobblers Cove one of the entomologists was bodily picked up by a gust of wind. He reckoned he went three feet in the air before landing safely.

As they left, the botanists declared their trip a success, and said: “Some species, introduced by the whalers and sealers in times gone by, are now extremely widespread across the island – mouse-eared chickweed (Cerastium fontanum) and dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) are two of the most common ones we came across. Others were introduced to the Island and though they persist they haven’t managed to spread, such as the curled dock (Rumex crispus), which was documented from one site in Grytviken over 30 years ago and still remains in stasis with no evidence of spreading. Other species had been reported in the past but on following up these historical records we found that they appear to have come and gone – apparently unable to cope with the harsh South Georgian winters.”

The entomologists collected around 888,000 specimens and face a huge task analysing them all back in the UK. The area near to the whaling station at Husvik was an especially rich area for them. Here they found lots of the introduced ground beetle as well as introduced bluebottles and confirmed the presence of a hoverfly. Their most exciting find before they left was a Pill Beetle at Grytviken. This may be a new find for South Georgia. Pill beetles (Byrrhids) are one of the few groups of insects that can survive feeding on nutrient-poor mosses and there are a number of species typical of higher latitudes and altitudes. This attractive beetle is less than 2mm long, and the beetles were either metallic green or bronze, possibly the male and female. It is called a pill beetle as, when threatened, it fits its antennae and legs in grooves in its carapace to form a perfect, smooth, pill-like profile.

You can read the blogs from the expedition on http://www.expeditionsail.com

Wedding By Candlelight

Two tour ship staff got married in the late evening on January 30th in the old whaler’s church at Grytviken.

The couple, Katharina Rademacher and Bernhard Kreisssig, have been working as naturalists on cruise ships and first had the idea of marrying at South Georgia when they visited a year ago.

They arrived this year on cruise ship “Delphin”, and, with 370 passengers aboard, they needed to work all day ensuring the visitors had a successful visit to Grytviken before they could be free for their wedding.

A wedding party of around 35 arrived by tender at the Grytviken jetty as darkness fell. After dressing in the Curators Cottage, the couple arrived at the candlelit church and the bells were rung by Ice Captain Aye to herald the start of the ceremony at 22.00hrs. A violinist played in the pulpit whilst the bride was escorted up the aisle. The bride was wearing a beautiful cream satin dress with a beaded bodice, net sleeves, and a large bow at the back. The groom was wearing ‘black tie’.

After the short civil wedding ceremony conducted by Registrar Sarah Lurcock, everyone toasted the newlyweds before returning to the ship to the echo of three cheers from the locals on shore. The party on the ship that night may not have gone on too long as they all had to be back at work by six the next morning.

Katharina and Bernd’s wedding

A Chronology Of Antarctic Exploration

A comprehensive and substantial new book on the history of the Antarctic region, including South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, has just been published. The author Robert K Headland wrote the book ‘A Chronology of Antarctic Exploration’ over the last 25 years whilst working at the Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge.

The book, which costs £110, contains 4865 entries from 700 BC to 2008 and has a comprehensive index which occupies a substantial part of the text. It is hardbound, weighs 2.4Kg, has 722 pages, and includes 40 plates, 27 maps and 21 histograms. The publisher is Bernard Quartich Ltd, ISBN 978-0-9550852-8-4.

Bird Island News

By Gorfou, Zoological Field Assistant at the British Antarctic Survey Base at Bird Island.

Last month I didn’t mention the Antarctic Fur Seals, one of the most numerous animals on Bird Island!! And yet it was an important time in their breeding cycle, the birth of pups. Thousands were born on the beaches all around the island and the last one born on the Special Study Beach was recorded on the 12th, almost two weeks later than last year. Since then they have been growing rapidly, discovering the use of their flippers during their first swims in the shallow water and some have even started moulting their black fur for a softer grey one.

As part of the long term monitoring work carried out on seals we all went out to Main Bay on the 6th, first time this year, and weighed 100 pups… 10.8 kg for the heaviest, while the lightest was only 3.4 kg.

For the other species breeding on the island (I’m talking of birds, of course!), all the chicks that are now big enough to protect themselves, or at least dissuade predators from attacking, had been left on their own when the adults are foraging at sea. Normally mollymawks (smaller albatrosses) lay only one egg, but it’s not uncommon to find a nest with 2 eggs. In that case 2 females occupy the same nest and have mated with the same male. We’re used to calling that a ‘trio nest’. Most of the time one of the eggs fail, if not both; occasionally both eggs hatch but again one of the chicks will die soon after. I had the chance this year to find a Grey-headed Albatross nest with two unguarded chicks keeping each other warm in their too small nest!! Unfortunately one of them, probably the smaller one, didn’t survive and was found dead in the nest a few days later.

By the end of the month Wandering Albatrosses had finished laying eggs and then on January 31st, like every year since 1989, the whole island nest census was carried out. For this all of us are required to count the nests in different areas of the island. Eight hundred and eighteen nests were counted that day, that is 50 more nests than 2 years ago when this group of birds last bred, and the second consecutive year with the number of breeding pairs increasing.

Editor’s note: Gorfou has been writing the Bird Island News for the GSGSSI newsletter for the last year. This is his last contribution as he will soon be leaving Bird Island after more than two years living and working there. Our grateful thanks and we wish him all the best for the future.

South Georgia Half-Marathon 2009

The 6th Annual South Georgia Half Marathon took place on January 6th in almost perfect conditions. Eighteen participants started out in two different groups. Those who elected to go in the slower group, nicknamed the “runklers”, set off at 9am in cool overcast and lightly rainy conditions, two hours ahead of the runners. By the time the more serious runners started it was dry, still and cool.

Four sets of marshals were out on key parts of the course: at the top of Brown Mountain (332m); Grytviken; KEP and at the hut at Maiviken, to keep everyone on course and to offer refreshments. Despite these precautions it was still easy for one ‘runkler’ to stray and add extra distance to the 13-mile course.

Robin Snape, the organiser of this year’s half marathon, was also the winner in a time of 1hr 45minuts and 8 seconds. Richard Innman was close on his heels, just 17 seconds behind, with Tom Marshall in third just a minute and a half later. First woman back was Jane Lelec in just under 2hrs 55mins.

The weather improved further to be hot and sunny, so those who had finished the grueling course could rest at the finish line in the sunshine whilst waiting to see the last of the walking group home. 14 people completed the course.

There was champagne to celebrate the winner’s achievement, and after a sauna to ease tightening muscles, everyone reconvened for a barbeque.

South Georgia Snippets

The ACAP (Agreement on the Conservation of Albatross and Petrels) co-ordinator for the UK Overseas Territories, Anton Wolfaardt, made a two-week visit to the Island. He has recently started a three-year contract and is based in the Falkland Islands. He said his visit to South Georgia was for orientation, so he could see what work is currently being done and what is needed for the future, and to get a better sense of the challenges South Georgia presents. He was able to visit key sites at Bird Island, Albatross and Prion Islands and also the Cooper Bay area. He participated in fieldwork being done at several of the sites and so could talk to the workers on the ground and will support and guide this work to fulfil obligations to ACAP.

His wife Leigh-Anne, who is an artist, accompanied Anton. Her woodcuts featuring albatross and seals are on sale in the South Georgia Museum, and when not assisting with the science fieldwork she grabbed the opportunity to do some sketching for future work.

On January 11th the Fishery Patrol Ship “Pharos SG” collected Sally Poncet and Ken Passfield of ‘South Georgia Surveys’ from the Bay of Isles where they had been conducting the annual Albatross and Prion surveys. They later assisted the Wolfaardts, who along with KEP scientists Jon Ashburner and Robin Snape, and Government Officer Pat Lurcock, were taking samples from the penguins at Cooper Bay following the outbreak of avian cholera in the Chinstrap Penguin colony there some years ago. One hundred and ten birds had blood samples and swabs taken which will be analysed over the coming months.

Cocktail parties were held at Government House in Stanley (FI), and here at Carse House to mark Possession Day. January 17th was the 234th anniversary of the day Captain Cook claimed the Island. It was a happy coincidence then that the NERC (Natural Environment Research Council) ship “James Cook” arrived on an unplanned call that day in time for its Captain, Antonio Gatti, to join the throng at Carse House and exchange plaques with the host, Government Officer Patrick Lurcock.

Toasting both James Cooks at the cocktail party.

Captain Peter Jackson has died aged 86. He was the master of the Cunard steamship “Queen Elizabeth 2” which operated in Cumberland Bay during the Falklands War. Cpt Jackson was on leave when he heard his ship had been requisitioned to carry troops to the South Atlantic in 1982, and in the following eight days oversaw the ships conversion from a luxury liner for 1800 passengers into barracks for 3,500 troops. With her high speed, the “QE2” then sailed from the UK to Cumberland Bay, South Georgia, in just 12 days. As the ship was unescorted on this trip, Captain Jackson’s previous experience at sea in WW2 came in useful. He chose his route to use cloudy skies so the ship was not seen by aircraft and further south used slower speeds and hid amongst the icebergs.

Born in 1922, he first went to sea aged 16, and obtained his master’s certificate in 1948. He sailed for 36 years under the Cunard house flag. He died on Christmas Eve 2008 and leaves a wife and daughter. (Info Telegraph.co.uk)

The historic wooden yacht “Wanderer III” returned to South Georgia just in time for its owners Thies Matzen and Kicki Ericson to celebrate their 10th wedding anniversary in the church at Grytviken where they were married.

In a nice echo of their wedding celebrations, they only knew four of the people gathered to help them celebrate on January 11th. They plan to over-winter at the Island.

What Fur Seal pups do with their time...

View Of The Month

Don’t forget to see this month’s 'View of the Month' on the South Georgia Heritage Trust website.

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