Mid-Winter and first snows - 20 June to 26 June

A skua patrolling for stragglers.

This has been a good week, the weather has been good, the skies have been mostly free of clouds and there have only been two days that the weather has forced us inside for the entire day.

Swemgat filled with fresh snowmelt water.

Tuesday, the 21st, was the Winter Solstice or Mid-Winter's Day which, as it marks the start of longer days, is party time all across the Antarctic continent and its islands. The island's inbox has been overflowing with tongue-in-cheek invitations to attend Mid-Winter parties at all the bases scattered across the white south. Sadly due to slight issues with transport we were not able to attend any of the parties and had to be content with enjoying ourselves here. To celebrate we all went for a swim at Swemgat, a large pool in the river near base. The water was only two degrees above freezing and after our swim we all unanimously decided that it was a really stupid idea and something that we should never, ever repeat! To warm up we returned to base and had a fondue and a large pot of Glühwein.

A light dusting of snow on the Rowetts

We had our first snowfall on Monday night (or at least the first snow we have been able to see from base) and Michelle, Robyn and I went up South Peak on Wednesday to see it. I also used the chance to visit Gonydale and check the Tristan nests. Sadly, many have failed as the mice become more hungry and start attacking the nests. So far, about a quarter have failed and more will follow as winter continues. Words cannot convey how sad it is to see the damage that mice do to these magnificent birds. Chick carcasses lie next to the nests, consumed from the inside out. It is horrific.

An Albatross chick, rather the worse for wear because its nest was in a stream. Rather poor parenting.

The weather has been so kind to us that we even managed a fishing trip yesterday and caught several large Five finger all around three kilograms. The fishing here is marvelously easy, just bait your hook, cast and wait a couple of minute until the fish take. If you don't have something after about five minutes, your bait is gone. The fish made a magnificent sushi starter for last nights braai.

Otherwise, life continues in the usual fashion. Minor disputes lead to sulking and hiding in rooms but that is island life for you. Not all sweetness and light unfortunately. Hopefully they will get over themselves or at least pretend (for everyone else's sake, if not their own) that everything is ok.

Family interest: This is the Gough Scientific Survey team who spent a year on Gough from 1955 to 1956. My grandfather's cousin Roger Le Maitre is the second from the left in the middle row.

They said it would rain and boy were they right! - 13 June to 19 June

The weather has not really improved since my last post and well, it is really starting to rain on my parade, quite literally. I amazed that Gough has survived as long as it because with the amount of rain we are having at the moment I would have thought that it would have disappeared into the sea long, long ago. To put it in context, the recent floods in the Eastern Cape were caused by about 80mm of rain in about twenty hours. We had 80mm in two hours the other day, which is not unusual and somehow the island is still here and not a muddy streak with some plants floating in it in the middle of the south Atlantic ocean.

The weather today for instance, Gough Island is the tiny dot just to the left of the "G" of "Gough"

The mud is worse too, I've been doing some burrowscoping of Atlantic Petrel Burrows to recover GLS trackers deployed by the biologists last year and for every five minutes the burrowscope spends in a burrow, I spend about half an hour cleaning the lens. As you may have gathered, the burrowscope is not my favourite object and at the beginning of this week when it refused to operate, there was much celebration, I mean sadness. Unfortunately, it was just a loose connection and it recovered quickly and much to my disappointment it is now working perfectly again. Not that it really matters because the Atlantic Petrels are not back yet, even though according to the bird book they should be. I shall persevere with the burrowscoping next week and hope they turn up soon.

An Atlantic Petrel, the photo was taken by the '05-'06 Gough biologist team

The incessant rain means that opportunities for getting out and further than an hour away from base are limited. Which means that I spend more and more time in base with everyone else. For Leonie, John, Prince, Mornay and Robyn (though to a lesser extent) the weather hasn't changed their behaviour that much. They have always spent most of their time in or very near to the Base, irrespective of the weather. However for Michelle and I, who have spent most of every nice day outside it is a major change and not a particularly nice one. There is only so much work that I can do inside and when that is done I am left with watching movies, series or reading books. I really wish Gough was more like Marion Island, where there are huts all over the island, or even if there was just one hut on the northern end of the island it would be great because I could spend some time away from the base and the increasing feelings of confinement and cabin fever. Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to haul off and start killing people with an axe but some time away would be wonderful. I could go camping but the thought of being trapped in a tent for days on end is worse than staying here so that is out. It also means that I don't have any new photos to post this week but the internet has provided.

I just want to say thanks to all of those people who email, Facebook or call me. It is great to speak or write to you and to hear your news, especially as it is something new and different. It is not that it is unpleasant to speak to the rest of the team here but we are deprived of much in the way of new stimuli and therefore most conversations are reruns of earlier ones and you have a really good idea of what anyone's opinion on almost any topic will be before they open their mouth. So it is you, my dear friends, who keep me sane and give me something to talk about and that is priceless!

The 21st of June is the winter solstice and we shall be having a big party to celebrate as is the tradition at all the Antarctic scientific bases. It will be good to unwind and party a bit.

Have a good week.

Weather delays - 6 June to 12 June

Sorry that I have delayed your Monday morning fix today but it was due to factors well beyond my control. The weather has been, well, shocking of late and the satellite system really struggles when it is raining which means that our internet connection was either down or really slow last night. It is still raining today (so much for my schedule!) but the connection seems much better so here goes.

Bad weather has once again been the theme this week but that is pretty much par for the course on an island with 300 rain days a year. Additionally it seems that we have some catching up to do as the weather has really not been bad at all this year with plenty of stunning days to get out and explore this beautiful island.

It is simply wonderful to have workplace outdoors rather in, however it does mean that on the days when it is pouring and I have work I cannot postpone or delay, I have to suck it up and get soaked. I had thought that there could not be anything worse for raingear than fynbos but I was wrong. The bracken here has destroyed two pairs of really nice eVent rain pants and is slowly killing my jacket too. The only upside is that I didn't have to pay for the gear myself, which is nice :-)

The walrus-deer of Gough, very rare and seldom sighted

My moorhens in the small cages do not seem to be adapting well to captivity, they all have lost around 10% body mass which is really worrying especially since they are not under fed at all. I am waiting for advice from up the food chain as to whether I should release them early and write off the trial. The last thing I want to do is kill members of an endangered species!

It started out as a nice day...

As coming home nears, we are all becoming more and more apprehensive, worried that we will not find the opportunities that we are seeking, that friends and family will have changed or that we will have changed greatly. Living here is a wonderful stress free cocoon, free from the worries of the world. Everything seems to pass us by with little or no effects on us. Politics, disasters and crime, these are all things that happen to other people far, far away and not here. The thought of returning to a world where these things will be happening to us is rather unappealing  Maybe I should offer to do another year here... Just kidding! The positives of returning far outweigh the negatives, especially seeing friends and family again. You are what really matter and it is you who have gotten me this far and will get me the rest of the way until I can see Table Mountain again. That is going to be a very, very good day.

A wet week - 30 May to 5 June

Commuting to work on Gough is rather different to my old commute, less traffic, no road rage, bad drivers or insane taxis. It has different challenges, such as fording flooded rivers rivers after the island has had 60mm of rain in three hours... All that river crossing advice that I have (luckily) avoided ever having to use back in the mountains at home has proven very useful here. Any of those of you reading this who think that this island sounds like a kayaking paradise are sadly mistaken. All the rivers here are clogged with low trees. You would be trapped in a strainer so fast, you would never have a chance. Sea-kayaks, however would be wonderful. Even now in winter we have days that are flat calm and would be absolutely wonderful to explore the island from the sea. You'd just have to find some way to circumvent DEA's silly policy about no swimming in the sea...

The river in question. It was thigh-deep at the shallowest place I could find.

So as I said, it has rained rather a lot this week and is due to rain some more tonight. There is a big cold front passing just south of us at the moment. For those of you are interested in these things, the pressure has dropped 20 millibars since 6 a.m. and is still dropping. Should make for a fun night!

All this rain plays merry hell with my work schedule because the only thing you can predict about the weather on Gough is that you can't predict the weather on Gough. Weekends and weekdays have ceased to have any real meaning, work happens when it is not raining too hard. Otherwise I spend my time writing reports, which are something else the job description did not include: Requires ability to write endless reports that no one will ever read. That would surely have stopped me applying for this job.

One clear night to see the stars and moon

Other than the weather there has been nothing else momentous, or even notable to recount this week. Have a great week yourselves. Bundle up warm, I hear it is cold in the Cape.

A sad week - 23 May to 29 May

A Skua with epic timing. Photo by Michelle

This week started off well enough with a visit to the Tristan Albatross nests on Tafelkoppie with Michelle. It was the most beautiful day (yes, we do still have them, even in May), the sun was shining brightly and there was only a little wind. Michelle accompanied me on condition that we climbed Mount Zeus, a small peak on Tafelkoppie that overlooks the base, as she had not climbed it before. This worked out for the best as once we were on top we could not resist the temptation to explore further afield and found some spectacular rocks including one shaped like the biggest cricket bat you have ever seen! On the way down we even got nibbled and preened by a friendly albatross. It is wonderful to see how unafraid the birds here are but at the same time, it is really sad because they used to be like this all over the world and it is only our behavior that has altered theirs elsewhere.

@Lawrence and Matthew: not too much good for BGC!

They are incredibly gentle for such large birds. Photo by Michelle

What made the rest of the week sad was finding out on Wednesday that a colleague of mine from my time at Tygerberg, both when I was doing my Honours and this year, had died on Monday following complications after and operation. She was really young, only a few years older than me and had just received her PhD. She had her  whole life to live and now she is gone. It made me realise that what I miss is not things, rather I miss people: my family, friends even just randoms that you bump into and strike up a conversation with. Also I have missed out on important events in several of my friends and family's lives. My sister had a child, two of my friends got married, another became engaged, some others will have a child in September before I am back. These are important mile stones in peoples lives and I am missing them all. I only get to experience them third hand through photos on Facebook. It is just not the same as experiencing it for yourself. Oh well, only a few more months and I will be back in the thick of it all and wishing for the quiet and solitude of the island again I am sure!

The weather has been atrocious this week which (literally) put a damper on work but I did manage to catch the last few Moorhens for the large aviary so that trial is now underway as well. I feel rather sorry for the Moorhens, all cooped up in tiny cells or squashed into the large aviary. They are really endearing little birds that seem to have genuine personalities and mannerisms. It is for their own good so they will have to man up and tough it out. Come to think of it the situation of the Moorhens in the large aviary is hardly any different to the team's situation. All cooped up and nowhere to go.

I finally succeeded in prizing some photos out of Michelle, so here is the summit photo from our trip to Edinburgh Peak

 Next week will be better I am sure. I hope it is the same for all of you too.

The end of the world avoided and Happy Birthday Mom. - 16 May to 22 May

Happy Birthday Mom, I hope you had a great day!

Or maybe he just misspelled it?

So the 21st of May came and went and the end of the world did not materialize. Somewhere in America a TV evangelist is ruing waking up today. What do you do on the day after the world as supposed to end but failed to? "Er... Sorry I must have gotten my dates wrong" doesn't really cut it as an excuse now does it?

We had a "What You Were Doing When The World Ended" dress up party here last night and after we had all had a few drinks talk turned to island life (as it always does sooner or later). Surprisingly, actually not so surprisingly to tell the truth, we are all of the opinion that the hardest part of being here is not the close, inescapable company of others but rather the inescapable company of yourself. It is troubling and counter-intuitive perhaps but since all of us here feel the same way it must be true. Elsewhere there are always easily available distractions from introspection but here you spend a large part of every day alone and during that time it is impossible not to think of your life and evaluate its worth. I think that if you are dissatisfied with yourself on a deep, personal level you would not survive here. I don't mean to suggest that we "islanders" are a cut above the rest or that our lives are particularly special but rather that we are all satisfied with our lives and achievements to this point. I know that much of my satisfaction with my life derives from my family and friends, so thank you for being there for me. Without you my life would be very empty.

Sunrise Wednesday morning

Sunset Wednesday evening - Photo by Michelle

So back to work topics, I have gathered from speaking to a few of you faithful readers of my blithering that there is some confusion as to exactly what I am doing with the captive husbandry of the Moorhens. Basically what it boils down to is this: During the planned attempt to eradicate the mice from Gough, which will happen at some unspecified date a few years hence, the Moorhens and the Gough Buntings are at risk of extinction because they will either eat the poison and/or eat the poisoned mice and die out. Therefore a captive population of both species must be kept during the eradication to restart the island population if needed. As very little is known about keeping captive populations of these species, small scale testing must be done to establish the best method for keeping the birds. I am testing two different methods, a large aviary with eight Moorhens in it and eight small 1m x 1m x 1m cages each with one bird to see which produces better results. I really feel sorry for the Moorhens in the cages, it is a highly unnatural situation and every time I feed and water them they panic. I hope that the panic will reduce as they become more used to me. I would hate to stress them to death!

The last balloon before the world ended

Enjoy the world for as long as it is here!

Happy Birthday, Dad - 09 May to 15 May

Today marks the 56th anniversary of my father's birth, so happy birthday Dad, have a great day. In a strange coincidence, my team is the 56th since the establishment of a weather station here on Gough, people were here, building the station when my father was born, interesting no?

The Moon at dawn

To follow on from last weeks post, I have emailed several people with whom I was planning on doing a PhD this year, to ask about doing a PhD with them next year. I have promised not to leave suddenly for an island and hopefully they will believe me! There are a wide variety of possibilities open to me, including the possibility of doing a PhD partly in South Africa and partly in Australia or even wholly in Australia. In fact the choices are so wide and varied that it will make it difficult to choose just one. I have even been offered the chance of of staying for another year on Gough but I don't think that I would do that, the appeal of home is far too strong. I have been away from friends and family for five months now and with only four months remaining the idea of making the four months into sixteen is crazy!

Work-wise this week has been fairly quiet, just completing the finishing touches to the moorhen cages and erecting the large aviary. Somehow, the minor last minute things have taken longer than it took to build the cages themselves. It always seems to happen that way, just when you think that you are done, you realize that there are still just a few things that need doing and before you know it, three days have passed and you are seemingly no further. They are complete and the large aviary that Graham and Kalinka built last year has been re-erected so now all that remains is to "furnish" the cages with branches, plants, soil, shelters and feeders and they will be ready for their occupants.

The "battery chicken" moorhen cages.  Each cage is divided into two sections which will each house a single moorhen for a total of eight moohens.

I think that this island life, living in such close proximity with so few other people would make for the most fascinating sociology study. It is difficult because the moment that one person is annoyed with another, everyone knows about it and is affected by it. Avoidance is impossible without being noticeable. If the team was larger, like on Marion where there are around twenty people, I think that it would be a lot easier because it would be less obvious that you are angry or avoiding someone else. It is still better than SANAE however, where the team is eight people and they spend around five months cooped up indoors without being able to go outside and without seeing the sun. Now that, that would be difficult!

The large 5x2x2m aviary which will house eight moorhens communally.

I should mention that the crew of the boat that exploded were taken off Tristan and arrived at Simonstown on Wednesday. They were taken to hospital in Cape Town and happily, all are expected to make a full recovery.

I apologize for the overdose of sunrise/sunset photos this week but almost all sunrises and sunsets here are so spectacular that they deserve to be immortalized.

Have a wonderful week.