King Edward Point Diary – May 2014

27 May, 2014 King Edward Point

Hello and welcome to an exciting, edge of your seat, month of May diary. It was the first proper month of winter for all of us here at KEP with only the core team left on base after the visiting summer scientists and team of builders had left, now there are only eleven of us here on South Georgia. The evenings are suddenly much quieter as many folk get on with their winter presents, the midwinter’s celebration that had seemed so far ahead in the future is now only a month away and the pressure mounts to craft an incredible gift to present on midwinter’s day.

We kicked off the month with a training exercise to test and practice our rescue techniques for getting an injured person back to base.

Early on in the month we did get a visit from HMS Portland, one of the Royal Navy warships patrolling the region. She is too big to come alongside our jetty and so anchored out in the bay but that didn’t stop us getting onboard for a look around – any excuse to checkout a warship isn’t to be sniffed at.

This was very much a month of birthdays, mine was on the fifth followed by Daniel, and then Matthew Phillips.

Another opportunity for cake this month has been Joe (our electrician) getting a high power management job back in Cambridge, overseeing construction of a new BAS ‘Innovation Centre’. This does mean he will be leaving us early but the cake made up for that.

We rounded off the month with a bit of fresh air and sightseeing with a boat trip over to the Neumayer Glacier. Incredible scenery and a stunning piece of ice, but, as the photo below shows, it isn’t quite as grand as it once was.

Dickie Hall,

KEP BC.