As we move the camp further away from the 'seat of civilisation' on South Georgia (King Edward Point, population 10) the land gets divided by more and more glaciers, increasingly steep fiord-like bays and generally inhospitable and extreme terrain.
We hope for the best (task completion without incident) but we plan and practice for the worse case, an aircraft incident. I am pleased to say that our team doctors are 2 of the most knowledgeable and skilled rescue medics that I have had the pleasure of meeting. Dr 'No Problem" Jamie and Dr 'Mountain Queen' Deirdre are both experts in difficult terrain rescue and remote medicine. I feel very heartened that they are an integral part of our 'mad ratters tea party' in this wild land.
Most resourcefully the 2 doctors have doctored our simple, basic aircraft 'first aid' kits. These are normally plastic boxes like you might buy at a garage, containing a few bandages, plasters and pins. They are fitted to an aircraft simply as a legal requirement. The doctors have waved a medical wand over these boxes, transforming them into first aid kits 'on steroids' Now at least if we have to wait a day or two to be picked up we can wait with arterial bleed staunched and pain and infection free.
I am working with a group of wild Antarctic style experts and skilled aircraft engineers on an Island that itself is 'on steroids'. Weather that is hopelessly unpredictable, wild cliffs and mountains rising straight out of the sea. Skies of complex, unbelievable patterns; clouds like anesthetised patients, flopped on a table.
Charles Dickens wrote when he visited the magnificent Glencoe in Scotland that it was akin to stepping into 'the height and madness of fever'. I can tell you with that thought in mind that being in South Georgia is like visiting a whole kingdom of Glencoes at once.
We linger on the fringes of this Kingdom by the edge of the cold sea. The seals are like mermaids, wreathed with seaweed red and brown and the wind blows the water white and black.
----
This e-mail was delivered via satellite phone using GMN's XGate software.
No comments:
Post a Comment