More snow - 22 August to 28 August

Firstly, happy birthday to my Grandfather, who turned 80, and to Roy and Frances too. Hope you had wonderful days.

As promised, here is the video I shot of the storm two weeks ago now. The swell was in the region of 10-15m. Every time a big wave broke, we could feel the vibrations 100m away in the base. Quite scary actually.

Blizzards of snow. We did have a braai later. Only South Africans...

August really has been the bad weather month, we had more snow this week. Happily this time, there was a decent break in the weather and I was able to climb Tafelkoppie to play a bit (and check the remaining Albatross nests - not all play...). 

Even though the bad weather has kept us inside most days, things have been better this week. I think that it is because the arrival of the Agulhas is now so near it is almost tangible. This has made the boredom struck people in the Base realize that perhaps they actually are going home and they have been more upbeat.

Tafelkoppie, with South Peak to the left of centre and the top of Edinburgh Peak sticking up in the far distance

I have been reading a fascinating book, Mountains in the sea - The story of the Gough Island Expedition by Martin Holgate, an account of the first scientific expedition to Gough in 1956. It provides a wonderful insight into the history of Gough and Tristan da Cunha. The conditions they had to endure were far, far worse than what we have had to deal with. They all lived in a small hut at the Glen, cooked on a tiny gas stove, used candles for lighting and their only contact with the outside world was radio contact and passing ships. Despite all of this they managed to explore the entire island, survey it, discovered new species of plants, birds, fungi, mosses and insects. Mr Holgate writes quite frankly and says that there were never any serious disagreements or arguments in the team and they all left as friends still. They did have the advantage of being friends before they came here and a single unifying goal which is what our team has lacked. Without some common purpose (surviving twelve months is not a goal) to unify us, something to which we contribute which is greater than all of us we have failed to become a team. It has especially affected Leonie and Mornay because they came here as support staff with no real aim other than to make sure that the team members are able to do their jobs which is not a goal either really.

Their boredom has an upside though, quite a lot of team duties before takeover, principally cleaning, are already finished without any of the rest of us having to lift a finger. It has made life easier to a certain extent but I think that I would rather have had to clean more and deal with less psychological mess.

There is so little time left before the ships arrival now but I happy to say that I am ready to go home now and will not regret leaving terribly.