King Edward Point Diary – May 2006

31 May, 2006 King Edward Point

Welcome one and all to another rip-roaring month of excitement on our very own private island. Well I am not going to bore you all with elaborate tales of the high seas and mountaineering. I am going to let the beautiful photographs do the talking so sit back and enjoy and I will see you at the other end…

It has been a busy month for boat training at King Edward Point both Charlotte and Adrian with 29hrs at sea between them. As for Rick and I we also spent most days at sea during the month carrying out scientific support aboard Quest with of course team-fish Sarah, Will and Jamie. Plankton trawls, CTDs, gill and trammel nets etc. We also had visits from six ships five of which we provided government officer support (passenger transfer) and one medi vac at night of an injured crew member, the entire operation lasting 5 hrs.

Their were three off-base trips in May Charlotte Sarah Rick and Will visited Coral bay, Godthul and Cobblers Cove from the 12th to the 16th getting stranded for one extra day due to poor weather (Rick was not a happy camper).

Adrian, Javier, Jamie and myself went to the Greene Peninsula from the 16th to the 19th and the weather during those days was just amazing – sunshine for all three days, and last but not least Pat and Sarah Lurcock went to Carlita Bay and Stromness from the 23rd to the 26th with some fine crisp weather with lots of sunshine.

Here at King Edward Point Research Station we have two annual oil response training days which all base members take part in as you can see by the pictures on this page.

May also saw a beach clean up of debris belonging to the two shipwrecks at the entrance to Moraine Fjord.

The Lyn and the No 1 Moresko, both of which ran a-ground in a storm on the same night April 30th 2003. The clean up was carried out by Ali, Charlotte and Will with boat support by Rick, Sarah, Jamie and myself.

On the social scene at King Edward Point this month we had two parties.

On Monday the 29th on board Sigma a 60th birthday for Dave the Master and on Saturday the 29th at Shackleton Villa, a going away party for our good friend Javier Fernandez – and here are some pictures of the night’s proceedings.

Island scenery

So here we are at the end of my pictorial presentation of events for the month of May 2006. I hope you all enjoyed the wonderful photographs and thanks to all who contributed and a special thanks to Ali, Charlotte, Will and Rick for all their help and advice in putting this together. As you all can see it is quite the place – never a dull moment in my estimation. I love it here the wild life the mountains and of course the ocean. To any of you lucky people who are about to start this coming season be prepared for paradise in the south Atlantic. I would like to end by saying hello to all my family back home to all my friends and to my fellow members at the Irish coast guard Doolin Unit and a special hello to my grandmother Peggy – see you soon.

I will leave you now a beautiful picture of Quest and crew.

Martony.