PORT LOCKROY

Sunday Eve, 17 Feb 08, MS Nordnorge, Somewhere in the Gerlache Strait, Antarctica

PORT LOCKROY

Port Lockroy, a tiny place,
Is a former British base.
With lots of ice,
It’s views are nice,
But it’s winters hard to face.

From today’s handout: “During Operation Tabarin in 1941, the British set up two bases in the Peninsula area to keep an eye on enemy shipping and destroy old fuel dumps. They chose Port Lockroy as an important anchorage and imaginatively named their base “A”. Its counterpart, the equally imaginative Base B, was built at Whalers Bay, Deception Island. It seems they used up all their innovation when naming the entire operation after a Paris nightclub favored by the staff. Since its restoration in 1996 by the Antarctic Heritage Trust (AHT), Base A on Goudier Island at Port Lockroy has become one of the most visited sites in Antarctica. It now operates as a museum, kept much like it was in the 1950s, as well as a post office and souvenir shop with all proceeds going to the AHT, a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving historical huts in Antarctica.”

At our reception desk, we had arranged for a few post cards to be mailed from Port Lockroy at an elevated price with the expectation of a one-to-three-month delivery time.

We crossed the bay, zig zagging around its floating ice in our little landing boats, and landed on the rocky point where the single small basic building that is Port Lockroy is located. There are interesting artifacts from the ‘50s to be seen and souvenirs to be purchased at high prices in the building from its two sales ladies and plenty of penguins surrounding it.

We also saw some white birds, smaller than penguins, among the penguins and a few of their brown and white chicks. Upon asking about them, I was told they are called sheathbirs. (I think that is how it was spelled to me.) And -- not a pleasant thought -- they eat the excrement of the penguins.

These gentoo penguins, I was told, like the ones seen yesterday, are six to eight weeks old. The chicks actually are as large as and, I’m told, actually heavier than their mothers. I was further told that they will have to loose weight before they go out to sea. Otherwise they could not swim. (They could not dive. They would float instead.)

This time I was able to get a picture of a mother feeding her young. It’s interesting that when the mother apparently runs out of food to give or at least decides to quit feeding the chick, the chick is still hungry and insistent. Sometimes the mother will then poke at the chick with her beak. And the chick will chase the mother as she runs away.

There was another cruise ship anchored in the bay. I think it was the same one we met earlier in the day. A friend told me we actually met it twice earlier in the day. Also, some saw a sail boat running under motor power in the bay. I didn’t see it, but I suspect it is the one I saw in Whalers Bay. It’s probably a research vessel. In the evening, walking on the deck, I saw two other vessels in the distance, one just as lights after dark far away.

After our excursion, Jo, Tom, Barbara, Aileen, Helen and I had some wine together in a lounge, then had dinner together in the dining hall.

After dinner, I walked around the deck for two hours and an estimated six miles. We passed beautiful scenery including many icebergs including a close pass by a rather enormous iceberg. And we passed some stark cliffs. At one point early in the evening there was some blue sky showing through holes in the clouds – the first time I’ve seen any blue sky in Antarctica. The waters were calm, and walking was not hindered by boat rocking. But it was windy. And now in the cabin, I feel the boat rocking.

I have known that several months ago a tourist ship – called the Discovery, I believe -- sank in Antarctic waters without any loss of life. And I knew the passengers and crew spent several hours in life boats before rescue arrived, at which time the Discovery was at a 45 degree angle. But it was only today that I learned the following: She was an older ship, more than 40 years old. She carried about 200 passengers and crew. Our ship has vacuum flush toilets, which is pretty standard on cruise ships these days. The Discovery had old-fashioned gravity flush toilets like we have in our homes. The toilets drained directly to a holding tank. The bottom of the holding tank was part of the bottom of the ship, and that’s where a small leak occurred due to striking rock or ice. The holding tank flooded with sea water which backed up into the toilets. The problem was first noticed by a passenger in a lower deck finding water on his floor. Though it was a slow leak, there was no way to isolate it, no way to valve it off. So it overflowed the toilets and eventually sank the ship. Our ship, the MS Nordnorge, was the rescue vessel that took all passengers and crew aboard. The regular Nordnorge tourists were obliged to stay in their cabins. The rescued people occupied the common areas – dining hall, lounges, lecture rooms, etc. They were taken to a military base in Argentina. Different Nordnorge crew members have different recollections how long it took to deliver them there. My guess is it took 1-1/2 to 2 days.

:-)

Bernie