So what can I tell you about the last few days?  More howling wind, more snow, more sea ice and sadly more ships that have had difficulties landing passengers due to the uncooperative weather conditions!  However, the Expedition Leader of one of the larger ships wasn’t going to be put off by a bit of ‘Antarctic Weather’.  If he couldn’t bring the passengers to us, he would take us to them!  And so came about our second mobile shop of the week!

As a matter of base safety, we wear full immersion suits every time we travel back and forth between Goudier Island and the expedition ships, which some may argue is overkill, but on this occasion we were very pleased to be in them!  If they couldn’t make a full landing, then the Expedition Leader asked whether the four of us would like to go on board to explain the history of the base and offer the passengers the opportunity to write and send some postcards and buy some souvenirs to support the Trust.  We agreed of course, and after loading up a huge dry bag and waterproof Peli case of small, light, stock items we made our way out to the ship.  We slowly pushed our way through the ice, which to be fair wasn’t anywhere near as heavy as at Palmer, but as we approached the ship’s gangway it was clear that the swell was going to make for a ‘bumpy’ arrival.  There were plenty of crew on hand to help though and in no time at all we were swept up the ladders and into the hub of the ship. The passengers were thrilled to see some new faces and swarmed around the reception area as we set up our little shop.  Three cheers for the expedition leader who made it all possible. Despite not being able to make a landing, the passengers all seemed very upbeat.  It was a speedy operation and we had only just time to serve everyone and take a very speedy shower before the ship heaved anchor and moved on to find a more sheltered spot.  There was no time for dinner on board, but we were very grateful to be clean and were sent home with some beautifully made sandwiches from the ship’s kitchen and wine gums from Brent, a friend we made on our initial trip south on the Endeavour, who has now switched ships.

It’s been pretty non-stop ever since with ship visits most mornings and afternoons. The sea ice has been amazing though, with ice calving off the glacier around the bay and huge bergy bits drifting in with the wind from the Neumeyer Channel.  Multanovskiy were able to visit us for the first time this season and weather permitting (!) offered us a formal invitation to join them on New Year’s Eve. We then had Polar Star return to see us in the afternoon. They’re always really good fun and yesterday evening we joined them on board for an Argentinean BBQ on deck, which was out of this world. They were staying in the bay until late in the evening so we were able to spend some time with the expedition team, crew and passengers (including a girl from Wokingham!) before heading home later on at night.  The only down-side of bonding with passengers, team and crew is that they think it gives them free license to pummel you with snowballs on the return zodiac ride !!!  We had about 20 people mercilessly throwing snowballs which they’d been secretly piling up while we were donning our immersion suits downstairs.  Many of them unfortunately had surprisingly accurate aim. The direct hits weren’t actually quite as bad as the ones that hit the water by the side of the zodiac, splashing us smack bang in the face – nice shots guys !

Well that brings me up to today. We’ve had another great day with a Quark ship visit this morning.  Rick and I went on board for a quick breakfast and pre-landing briefing before hot-footing it back to shore. The passengers were great and had the added perk of a zodiac cruise around the ice where a leopard seal was playing in the water and putting on a quite show.  ’Us girls’  took it in turns to hotfoot it outside to take a few snaps when we could as it really was close to shore, but every time I went out the seal jumped back on the ice floe and did it’s best sleeping lion impression .

No ships this afternoon so we have had an afternoon of catching up and preparing for the very busy days ahead.  The weather finally seems to be turning a corner (we hope!) and we have ships due in morning, afternoon and sometimes in the evening over the next few days.  I expect we’ll be burning the candle at both ends, but the Christmas decorations are up, cheesy Christmas tunes are playing and we have three bags of inbound mail due tomorrow night :0)!