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The majority of the preparations for the expedition had to be made in my own time, however I am lucky to be in a job which keeps me in good physical shape anyway and allowed me time to pick up certain essential items of communications equipment. The expedition start date was fast approaching, every week the yacht, a civilian chartered high latitudes 50 called Ice Maiden sailed closer to the Falkland Islands where the South Georgia Leg crew would changeover with the crew from the previous leg. I checked and rechecked the communications aspects of the planning and checked and rechecked my own packing for the mountaineering phase. South Georgia simply isn't one of these locations where if you've forgotten something it doesn't matter. The team had to be completely self reliant including its own means of getting off the island (the yacht), its own satellite communications in duplicate and its own doctor. The amount of organisation that the Expedition Leader Major Bil Bilous undertook and succeeded with is truly astounding and deserves every credit that can be given.
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The day of the South Georgia legs departure from Brize Norton on the 27th December soon arrived and for many it was the first meeting of the team. What I have often found to be the beauty of Service expeditions is that you can select a group of people who hardly know each other, throw them together in some fairy arduous circumstances, give them a common aim and they will not only succeed but they will often leave the best of friends. In this respect Service expeditions are excellent vehicles for demonstrating the power of teamwork and the necessity of facing up to and dealing with interpersonal issues. If two people have a problem with each other in the Southern Ocean or the mountain they must resolve it and work together or they may put their own lives and others at risk.
The Flight to the Falkland Islands via Ascension Island was uneventful enough and soon the team were pulling out all the stops in an effort to get the yacht ready for its gruelling passage to South Georgia. In that time the number of people that said that they thought we were mad for sailing 'down there' in 'that' grew daily. Although we might have harboured concerns when we took the yacht over, by the time we had finished in our preparations we all knew how ship shape Ice Maiden had become.
The voyage down was supposed to be the easier sailing leg due to the fact that the prevailing winds and surface currents would be behind us. The reality proved otherwise. The first few days were good sailing, but beating to windward so quite energetic and I spent a good 36 hours feeling decidedly unwell. It leant extra credence to the Skackletonian quote "Some of the men are over their sea-sickness and no longer want to die". On our second day out from the Falklands we saw our first Icebergs, huge majestic snow covered plateaux and strangely carved pinnacles glowing turquoise in the sun. The radar was simply littered with them and we felt very relieved that the seas were so calm at that time. The third day was our first glimpse of southern ocean fury and a South West force 7 blew up against up slowing our progress considerably. Following that we had a day where the Ocean was like a glass mirror it was so still and the sun was so fierce we were all asking for extra sun-block. That day we passed the half-way mark to South Georgia, now just over 400 miles left! After such a marvellous day of sunshine we drove on into our first Force 8 again from the West and this time since we had passed the Antarctic convergence zone whipped up over seas as cold as 2 degrees centigrade. Even in our modern protective clothing our hands and feet were frozen and I was more deeply impressed than ever before with what Shackletons men must have lived through. Having said that with all the advances that man has made over the years the sailing wellington is simply the pre-historic of all adventure clothing. The idea of a thin shell of rubber being somehow insulating against Southern Ocean temperatures is quite clearly ludicrous and far too many times I law in my bunk massaging my lifeless feet after a three hour night watch had sent them into hibernation. 'Roll on the mountain phase' I found myself thinking, along with every other mountaineer on the trip. That is not to say that the sail down to South Georgia didn't have moments of pure pleasure. Our first sight of the wandering Albatross was really something special, they are amazing birds as they silently glided their huge wingspan over the waves behind the yacht in the evening light. One thing that really struck me was that even in the midst of a raging force 8 storm the birdlife never left us. There were always Anarctic petrals, Albatrosses and gulls racing the waves or sheltering in the wind shadow of the yacht. However, when on the morning of the seventh day I woke from dreaming that I was in Hell only to find out that I was on watch again I knew my enjoyment of the sail down was wearing pretty thin. I was more than a little relieved to make landfall that evening and for the first time in a week enjoyed a full nights sleep without having to brace my body against the bunk to stop falling out of it or waking up having fallen out of it.
We made Landfall at King Edward Point, the only permanent settlement on the island. The military presence is also here, although by the end of March the handover to the British Antarctic Survey should be complete and the Military will withdraw from the Island. There was a great deal of construction work going on when we arrived and it was a relief to be on the rigid raiders with all our mountain gear ready for insertion onto the beaches below the Nordenskold Glacier. I have never started a mountaineering expedition before in immersion suits wading ashore in the shadow of a massive glacier. It was a surreal experience, to land not ten meters from several Elephant Seals who barely batted an eyelid at our presence. As soon as the rigid raiders turned tail and sped away from the beach the sheer size of the Glacier became apparent. Huge parts of the ice face were calving away into the sea on a regular basis and the sea shore was littered with ice debree. Myself and my climbing partner Captain Stuart Macdonald had delayed our insertion by a day from the rest of the team so as to ensure all the communications batteries were fully charged. This meant that we had the beach to ourselves in one of the remotest spots in the world. That afternoon we made load carried of all our equipment and the teams communications equipment up through the moraine onto the edge of the Glacier. It was backbreaking work as were the subsequent days hauling sleds of gear up the glacier to base camp.
In total we spent three weeks on the island, climbed several new peaks, one of which was our primary target Mount Roots, which at 7483ft had been the highest remaining unclimbed peak on British Territory. I also took part in an attempt on a new route on Mount Paget, the unclimbed East Ridge. The team started out in superb weather and reached an altitude of 8500ft before severe weather forced a retreat. I personally learnt a great deal from that trip, perhaps more on a human level than on a technical one. The views from Pagets East Ridge were phenomenal. The Allardyce mountain range is the main spine of the island and we were climbing on its very edge with massive glaciers falling away to the Ocean at either side of us. The snow petral followed us up into the mountains too, and even at altitude were darting about the skies above our heads, it is apparently in these mountains that they make their nests.
The weather was one of the things that struck every member of the mountaineering party most profoundly. It really is a place where you can experience four seasons in one day and its working on a fifth. I remember one evening going for a walk across the glacier by moonlight when the air was so cold my teeth hurt and the following morning our snow cave began to melt away in a thaw. The winds can come from nowhere, and go from complete calm to 100mph winds in a few hours. We would lie awake in our tents and listen to the roar of the wind approaching, it would build to a crashendo then suddenly strike the tent, grabbing it and shaking it with all its might. We called it the intercity wind and it was as regular as clockwork. When the pressure started to rise we would suddenly have the worst weather of the entire trip, and then when it fell again we would have perfect tranquil weather. The changeable nature of the weather meant not only the added danger of being caught out in an exposed position on the mountain but also several enforced snow-cave bound days which were terribly frustrating.
After three weeks up in the mountains the team regrouped and headed back down the glacier to rendezvous with the yacht and find out about their adventures. We had pre-arranged a pick up date with them back on the beach many weeks ago. Returning to the beach, where the Elephant seals still loafed about and the glacier calved its ice at us with even greater frequency, was really quite satisfying. We had achieved a great deal as a team, seen parts of the island that only a very privileged few have seen and become good friends. We enjoyed our final evening before the rest of the world would intervene and pick up the pace.
Ice Maiden sailed up to the glacier snout to great us and we were picked up by Gemini with our kit and loaded on board. The Sailors had succeeded in their aim to circumnavigate the island and we exchange our stories with renewed enthusiasm- a fresh audience for each others tails of daring do!
There had been an intention to attempt to cross the island as Shackleton had done to reach the whaling stations in his rescue bid from Antarctica. The time remaining, and the fact that the return sail to the Falklands would be so much more difficult and time consuming meant that we simply could not attempt it. With the decision made the team spent several days turning equipment round and re-stowing for the return sail.
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I must admit that I was not particularly looking forward to the return sail. Having spent no small time throwing up on the voyage down and the rest of the time tried, cold and wet, the small activity and excitement of an Ocean passage no longer measured up against the discomfort endured. We made short day sails up the coast to Husvik harbour and then Prince Olav harbour and this did nothing to reassure me as I spent most of the day trying to stop myself from retching. I have never been sea-sick before, and I have done some considerable sailing, however the motion of Ice Maiden was more than a match for the toughest of stomachs.
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Both Husvik and Prince Olav harbour are also old whaling stations and yet are now in some considerable state of disrepair. It is amazing how quickly nature has reclaimed the island. The fur seal population has rocketed in recent years and both harbours were teeming with wildlife when we visited. The innocent little fur seal is certainly deserving of a mention here, if not a complete reassessment of its character. I had always been lead to believe fur seals would be gentle harmless creature, by am now firmly convinced they are the rottweiller of the seal fraternity. They have nasty yellow fangs and run at great speed towards you snarling like an angry dog. One local 'expert' suggested that they were only playing but this received the scorn that it deserved.
Our sail back to the Falklands in the end turned our to be really quite enjoyable, if a little drawn out. It took us eight days in total where as five would have been enough thank you. We enjoyed some very fine sailing weather and then experienced our first force nine of the trip. We watched an iceberg glide past not thirty meters away and Albatrosses followed us most of the way home. We eventually sailed in to Mare Harbour to the most wonderful sunset of the entire trip. It was almost as if the weather knew that the sun was setting on our expedition as well.
There is so much more that I could write about this trip. I have not written about the people and perhaps that is a great mistake, for it truly was the expedition members who made the trip so special. I could write a short story on each of the characters in this story and what we learned from each other. Rather I hope that I have given you a taste of what the trip was like. South Georgia is a truly amazing island and it leaves an impression on you like nowhere else. I for one wish that the military presence on island would continue, if only to give other military personnel the opportunity to see such a wonderful place. Sadly the opportunities to visit are reducing and increasingly the privileged few are there because they have the money to get there.
Exercise Southern Tartan Challenge was a superbly successful expedition in and intensely challenging area of the globe. A place where unpredictable weather and its remoteness combine to necessitate good decision making and resourcefulness if you are to survive let alone succeed in what you aim to achieve. Not only did we achieve in climbing the third highest peak in British Territory but we circumnavigated the island too, and you can count on one hand how many yachts have done that. Yet the exercise is far from over, even as I type the yacht Ice Maiden is sailing back to the United Kingdom with various different crews. Part of me wishes that I was still aboard... |
