54 17'S 036 30'W. South Georgia, Southern Ocean.

Follow Matt Kenney during his deployment in South Georgia, working as a Boating Officer and Coxswain for the British Antarctic Survey.

Read Matt's posts with news, reviews and extracts from his Journals, and see photo and video posts to show you some of the work the Antarctic Survey are doing in the Southern Ocean, and also provide an insight into life on a British Antarctic research station.

Matt will also provide accounts of his work at sea and ashore on Humber Destroyer RHIBs and 11m twin jet drive Pilot vessels along side the team at the King Edward Point research facility.

Matt arrived in South Georgia on the 28th October 2010.

Wednesday 3 November 2010

RSS James Clark Ross

Yesterday saw the arrival of the RRS JAMES CLARK ROSS to South Georgia.  The JCR is a Scientific support and replenishment vessel owned and operated by BAS, and keeps a busy schedule running supplies to all the Antarctic Stations and running research cruises around the Southern Ocean.  A good friend of mine, Dave King, who helped me enormously with invaluable advice before my deployment,  worked on her as the Chief Officer for a number of years, so I can say to him I have finally met the old girl, and not only that but helped berth her alongside.  Very often when larger vessels come into the cove, the Boatmen of South Georgia are asked to assist by using an RHIB as a line handler.  So me and Ashley donned our dry boat suits and I drove the ALERT out into the cove to tend to her two Head Lines.  A crewman lowers the warp (with no messenger lines attached in this case) onto the bow of the RHIB which is then motored to the required anchor point on the shore and passed to the shore team who make the line fast to heavy ground tackle.



Today she was delivering her cargo of supplies for King Edward Point.  These supplies will be the bulk of the support for the station for the next year, although, the PHAROS will be available often enough for small replenishments.  We spent the day unloading tons of food, boat spares, office supplies, medical supplies, toiletries, beer, wine, spirits... You name it we now have it.  No rest today either, as all cargo needed to be removed from crates and all packaging and waste segregated and processed for recycling and the items checked against the orders and put away.
Today was fairly hard work getting everything booked in and put away, so Katie, Ashley and I took a walk up to Gull Lake after work.  Its been another wonderful day of sunshine, and the lake was very peaceful as the sun went below the mountains.  Heres some pictures of the JCR coming away last evening - mainly for Mr King :-) - She could not stay longer as she has a very tight schedule this year due to delays in a shipyard up the Tyne earlier this year.

1 comment:

  1. Hello Matt, it's Rosie, from the MCA! Bit weird, but I found your blog from your out of office reply when I sent an Entire MCA e-mail! Have been looking jealously through all your photos; some of them (most of them) are absolutely stunning. Will continue to read your blog with keen interest, especially since I am a Blogspotter too! Glad you're having a brilliant time, Rosie

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Matt Kenney 2010.