Rock around the Block

Early morning 6th March, a dense layer of fog hangs just above the surface all around our camp in Stromness Bay on the North side of South Georgia.

At last I have time to catch up here on the keyboard while the helicopters are grounded by the weather.

The final move from our support ship was a whirling flurry of netted loads and containers filled with everything to sustain our team to the middle of June. We are now settled around a sort of halfway house to our fully tented base.

A disused wooden house from the whaling era is acting as our HQ and affording a fair amount of shelter.

The bait-loading experts, led by Nick have been setting out their delivery systems. The GPS wizard; Dave has been feverishly programming and calibrating the aircraft digital equipment. The new Zealand pilots, Peter and Dave, seasoned agricultural application operators, have been 'flying the block'; the boundaries of the grounds to be covered; the coastal, vegetated inland strip and the higher rocky hills and crags, in order to set up the digitally mapped areas to be baited. It is all-skilled, exacting work necessary to get this environmental job done accurately and successfully.

I'm the transport pilot now; loads that need shifting, crew to baiting sites, the odd trip to King Edward Point for our 'management to liaise with the SG Government reps. If someone gets 'crook' I might be given some training time with the baiting buckets and GPS logging system but even I realise it's a real art form requiring a good year of flying practice to produce the required accuracy and economy with the bait!

Meanwhile I've also been helping out transporting ground baiting teams to the disused whaling stations that need bait inserted into buildings dangerously contaminated with asbestos. The roofs of these old buildings prevents the bait, falling from our aerial applications, getting to potential dark, warm rat nesting areas

At Stromness Whaling Station, (the point of civilisation that Shackleton staggered into after his epic journey) we march around deserted, uniformly rust coloured sheds and machine works. We are dressed in protective gear from head to foot, in blue coveralls, hard hats, respirators, carrying buckets of bait.

We insert the bait into likely rat areas. There are thousands of seals all around the spooky collection of buildings and oil tanks. They are more aggressive than at other areas where we have met them. They rush up and snap at our legs, barking and screaming.

I suddenly imagine what I have been transported to; an urban film set; mad scientists, decrepit buildings and rail tracks, wild shrieking animals. I have fallen down a 'Mad Ratters' rabbit hole into the set of "Zombie Apocalypse"

We find fresh rat droppings in only one building. Curiously it is on the floor in the remains of the 'managers villa' just inside the door that Shackleton knocked on after his grueling march to safety over the Island in 1916.

Afterwards, away from the asbestos risk, I take a breather, mask off, sitting down on the dark grey pebbles at the shoreline, about a meter away from the sea. The young seal pups are shooting up and down along the surf line like little porpoises. Suddenly a much larger adolescent seal launches himself directly at me, in a feigned attack from below the surface. I shoot up like a scalded cat and retreat. The team, sitting 20 meters further up the beach, falls about laughing at my sudden seal surprise.



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