The Blue Bar

We are being held to ransom. Not by renegade seals but by the appalling weather!

We have been delayed for at least a week now, plans on hold, while the wind and clouds tease and taunt us. Sometimes we enjoy clear blue skies and calm air in the location where we are waiting but we have completed our task here and no further bait can be sown. 10 miles westward along the coast, on our next sector, the air is howling and bait flying is simply not possible. Other days it is clear in the new target areas (we have lads camping out as forward observers) but we are 'clagged in' at base by low, unyielding cloud.

Everyone is itching to get the job done; the longer we wait the closer real winter edges towards our insubstantial refuge on this unforgiving island.

Slack times mean non-essential tasks can be completed and then 'relaxation and escape areas' can be created. The 4 pilots and 2 engineers are 'housed' in the old radio shack of a disused whaling station. We now have a communal 'rest' area where the sorrows of frustration can be drowned and plans hatched and the world be generally put to rights.

In the middle of this small room is an old pine table that some previous temporary inhabitant of this arcane building has painted with bright blue gloss paint.
The Kiwi pilots have put a label up on the door to name this relaxation area:

"The Good Bastards Club (no tossers allowed)"

With the coloured table taking centre stage, it is known by the rest of the team as; "The Blue Bar".
Conversation in "The Blue Bar" is lively and colourful Kiwi metaphors abound.

When we discuss music and literature, the strange Island of South Georgia seems to take over our train of thought. We do not talk of Michelangelo but enthuse over the lyrics of Billy Bragg, the landscapes of South Georgia, like the 'dark side of the moon' and the links between Pink Floyd and the Wizard of Oz.

I also learn stuff about rats I never knew; that they can tread water for 2 days, climb vertical wires and compress their bodies so they can squeeze through holes the diameter of a UK pound coin.

From my 'pit space' (sleeping area) in the radio shack, I can see into The Blue Bar'. The quiet weather-strangled days have meant that personal supplies of 'medicinal tincture' have slowly migrated to the shelf above the blue table that acts as a bar.

Looking over from where I am typing, I can see on the shelf there are several bottles laid out neatly, just like in the bar of a friendly village pub.

In no order of preference I note:

Whisky:

Highland Park
Macallan Select
Jura 10 year old
Laphroaig Quarter Cask (48%)
Famous Grouse

Irish Whiskey:
Bushmills Original


Rum:
Havana Club
Cockspur Barbados
Captain Morgan Spiced

Gin
Gordon's London Dry Export (47.3%)
Bombay Sapphire

Others:
VSOP Brandy
Kahlua

Taylors Late Bottled Port 2005
Finlandia Vodka

Beer:
Bottles of Grolsch, St Miguel and Fullers IPA.
Tins of Guinness.


2 bottles of Merlot.

Tonic Water.

A container of fresh river water, (filtered for the removal of fly larvae and seal dung)

A Kiwi pilot enters the radio shack and heads towards "The Blue Room". He is an old hand, a veteran of the old venison flying days in New Zealand. He has many thousands of hours flying helicopters in the worst weather the New Zealand Mountains can throw at a helicopter pilot. He has survived all that. He runs his own helicopter company now but has chosen to spend some months in South Georgia on a bit of an adventure.

He had been tasked out in what seemed like a temporary calm 'weather window' this morning to fly some much needed supplies about 15 miles to 2 lads at one of the forward camps at Peggotty, on the South side of the Island.

Peggotty is a very windy spot. Shackleton, the intrepid explorer, chose to name the area after a Dickens fictional destitute family. We have renamed the area 'Purgatory'.

The pilot has just flown back to the base camp. He couldn't delivered the supplies.

He is shaking his head.

"I've just tried to land a helicopter at Purgatory, in the worst turbulence I have ever experienced. Not possible."


The Blue Bar is open.




















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