Predictably, a few more days have lapsed since my last update and while it’s not so fresh in my mind, I still need to fill you in on our day trip!  At this time of year we sometimes get the odd day when no ship visits are scheduled and yesterday was one of those days.  Not one to miss a trick, the Expedition Leader on the National Geographic Endeavour (the ship which brought us down) noticed that we had a ship-free day and approached us with a proposition.  We weren’t expecting them to be in the area for a few more days, but he contacted us and asked how we would feel about him bringing in a group of passengers in the morning to visit Port Lockroy, then we could jump on the ship with them afterwards to go on an overnight trip to Palmer.  What is Palmer I hear you ask? Palmer is a Scientific Station which forms part of the US Antarctic Programme and is our closest neighbour!  Given that we had a gap in the schedule, we’re all up to date with everything on base and ready for a rare afternoon off, we jumped at the chance of a short break.  Palmer is just 1 ½ hours from PL by ship, but since we don’t have a boat and they can only allow 12 expedition ship visits per season (in order to minimise disruption to their scientific programme), this was a rare but very welcome opportunity!  After a brief, but somewhat queazy,  journey to Palmer (no breakfast – rookie error!), we arrived at Arthur Harbour, to find an immense amount of tightly packed brash ice (fragments of ice less than 2m wide), blocking the final leg of our journey.  Captain Olaf had of course already spoken with the station way in advance to check the landing conditions and was aware of what awaited us.  Eventually some of the Palmer Team fought their way through in a zodiac and gave us a presentation about the US Antarctic Programme before we tried to make our way ashore.  The expedition staff were complete stars and it took more than a little patience and perseverance on their part to negotiate the zodiacs through the very heavy ice.  They managed it by manoeuvring two zodiacs of passengers at a time, with the first zodiac breaking a path which would make the passage marginally easier (!) for the second.

We went in the last zodiac with the final members of the expedition team and our little mobile shop, which the Palmer Team had asked us to bring.  The station seems enormous when you compare it with Goudier Island (where we are), however to be fair they currently have 25 people on base, but can accommodate up to sixty. They also have their own osmosis plant which creates an unlimited supply of fresh water, internet access and a hot tub !!!!  The tour of the base was really interesting, taking in all of the above plus the aquarium where we saw ice fish, Antarctic cod, various star fish and isopods, plus the shop where we got our own little dose of retail therapy. Purchases complete, we were ushered through to their recreation centre but didn’t even made it as far as the lounge where coffee and brownies were being served,  as we were so gob-smacked when we stumbled upon their kitchen!!!!  Their food store was the size of our boat house, their ‘baking area’ was the size of our kitchen and their oven was the size of our solitary 6 x 1.5′  food storage cupboard !!  We exchanged base cooking notes with Palmer’s very lovely chef  Wendy and upon hearing our plight she plied us with fresh pastries straight from the oven and warm fresh bread which she had made that morning from glacial water.  We were in heaven .  I have to clarify at this point that we are very, very happy with our simple way of life at Bransfield House and wouldn’t change it for the world, but this certainly gave us a taste for how the other half live!  After wrapping up our own little mobile shop and fighting our way back through the brash ice, we spent the rest of the evening back on the ship with some of the station staff before hitting the hay in preparation for our return to Port Lockroy in the morning.  After a lovely night’s sleep in a cosy cabin and another couple of showers under my belt, we returned to PL at 7.00am. The sun was shining and we were all set for two ships arriving in the afternoon and evening. When we arrived however, there was another surprise in store.  Pelagic Australis (a 70-80ft) sailing yacht was in the back bay.  Their passengers weren’t in a huge rush to come in, having had a late night on board the night before but they were with us by late morning.  It was a really leisurely visit and they were a really lovely group.  The passengers will of course change, but we will really look forward to Stewart and Jess’ return visits over the coming weeks.

The rest of today was very hectic with Fram bringing in almost 200 passengers in the afternoon, followed by the arrival of another smaller expedition ship in the evening.  It turned into quite an action-packed day and with the final ship making it’s onward journey to Stanley we topped the day off by managing to dispatch three bags of outbound post .