The end of the dream - 5 September to 11 September

For a long time after I arrived on Gough, it did not seem like it was real. It felt like a dream, at times a bad dream but mostly a wonderful one. After several months that dream ended and Gough was real, in all its beauty and uniqueness. It was the world outside of our tiny isolated island that ceased to be real and became a place of memories and voices on the far side of a telephone line. With takeover starting next Saturday (the 17th), the real world is invading Gough and taking away much of the "specialness" of our island. I don't resent that out time here as a small group is ending, in fact I look forward to new faces, stories and people to help with the work but I know that I will always miss the quietness and relaxed tempo of live before takeover.

A Yellow Nosed Albatross preparing its nest

I was not here for takeover last year but still the island is beginning to resemble the island on which I arrived in December 2010, the Yellow Nosed and Sooty Albatrosses, the Great Shearwaters, Broad Prions and even the Rockhopper Penguins have all begun to return. Every moment you spend outside in the daytime is filled with the KEEEEEaaaaHHHHH of the Sootys as they spin, turn and dive above the cliffs.

This has been a month of "lasts" for me, last visits to all the special places on this island, before the crowds arrive, to fix them in my memory forever. This will probably be my last post from Gough because I am sure that I am going to be worked to a standstill during takeover and will probably not have time to post updates. So for those you faithful readers who have developed a dependency and need your fix, it is cold turkey for you, good luck. I will write a final post about takeover and the voyage home on the Agulhas but that will be posted from home and not from Gough.

Gonydale

Time flies like an arrow and fruit flies like a banana - 29 August to 4 September

The title of this post is a rather poor pun but true nonetheless. The closer that we get to the arrival of the S.A. Agulhas the faster time seems to pass. It seems only the other day that we were celebrating Mid-Winter and 100 days, then 40 days and now it is only 40 days until we are back in Cape Town. The closer it comes, the more the anticipation grows. We all dream of our first sight of Table Mountain, the first fresh fruit, the first cup of tea with real milk and of course the first sight of all our families.

 With the rapid approach of takeover we have all been hard at work cleaning the base, for some reason John et al decided that we should go completely overboard and wash the ceilings and walls which has got to be the biggest waste of time ever. Firstly the ceilings and walls really are not dirty at all and secondly the base is going to be replaced in the very near future (that is if the government decides to that renew the lease in 2013). It really smacks of make-work, something that we have to do in order to alleviate their boredom. We even had to weed the grass growing on the wooden platform that supports the helipad, why - no one knows.

The cleaning also really always seems to fall on the nicest days when the wind is still and the sun is shining in other words the days when it would be ideal for me to do longer trips away from base to check nests or ring birds. Ag, whatever, it really is only a few more days now. I will survive!