| "In
the event of no news we can do something about it...." |
Happy New
Year! For all the mother hens (male and female) reading
these despatches and worrying about the climbers up on the mountains
you should rest assured that those of us who remain on the team yacht,
John Laing, inevitably share a feeling of nervous anticipation too (we
therefore understand how important Despatches are to you too).
We differ at this end, of course, because in the event of no news we
can do something about it. The climbers missing a radio schedule
is not without precedent - they repeatedly get distracted climbing
"Mount This" or getting to the summit of
"Mount That" in the privilege of the 24 hours of daylight we
have here at the moment. Normally, within a few hours they
return to the 
radio and update us on their
activities and achievements (which admittedly usually justify having
kept us chewing nails to the quick and merit only a British
understatement of terse radio speak to convey the inconvenience of
having sat by the set for a few hours listening to white noise to the
detriment of the yacht's own programme!) so when two days ago there
was no sign of the climbers during their evening radio schedule we
resigned ourselves to another night calling into the ether at 15
minute intervals to await their belated news from the hills. But
none came, and despite our best efforts with HF and VHF radios and
satellite pagers (bizarre isn't it, that all the way down here one of
the most effective means of getting a message to the Land Team is to
"Page" them?) by morning minor alarm bells were beginning to
ring. Minor only because it was a glorious night (daylight still of course)
and the teams on the hill could be imagined having a field day
exploiting the good weather - we had never seen the Gerlache Strait
looking so clear and the mountain tops of the Forbidden Plateau and
nearby Brabant and Anvers Islands seemed to be mere minutes
away. The absence of any other normal visual references on such
clear days is very disorientating - objects that look almost close
enough to touch can be over ten miles away such is the scale and
enormity of the mountain massifs that rise sheer from the
waters. There comes a time, however, when even in the best
of weather, inaction is no longer an acceptable response.
The yacht by now had
already left our recent exploring grounds of the Melchior Islands, an
extraordinary group of isolated outcrops named after letters of the
Greek Alphabet and separated by narrow steep sided sea filled gullies
deep enough to squeeze John Laing through with inches to spare (no
paint lost in the process I'm pleased to say - John Laing's owners the
Southampton based Ocean Youth
Trust will be pleased too!). There too, we'd collected more
Geology samples and data from the rock strata clearly visible in the
exposed cliffs. We shall pass on the samples to the University
of Brighton whose research we are supporting. There'd been time
as well to visit the unoccupied Argentinean base on Gamma Island
(their country's economic problems have dictated that all their bases
are closed this year) and to take the inflatable boats on further
exploratory trips into creeks and coves too tight even to squeeze John
Laing into - although our near picture-perfect anchorage between Omega and Eta
Islands nearly fell into this category too . Half way back
across the Gerlache Strait therefore, it made sense to head once more
for the Chilean Station at Waterboat Point where a safe albeit
ice-strewn anchorage was available for John Laing. More
importantly, the base personnel also have a high powered radio and
permanent antennae which they allow us to use and which could be used
to eliminate the possibility of a communications failure at the John
Laing end of the chain. Still no sign of climbers however - Plan
B.
Plan B starts to consider
the options if things have not gone smoothly on the mountain; a
team lost or someone needing medical assistance for example. In
its most extreme form it requires the reserve climbers located with
the yacht (and possibly the Doc of course) to ascend to the last known
position of the climbing teams and ascertain the problem. Moving
with light loads along the marked route and without the need to carry
extra food and fuel for caches, a small team like this can move
rapidly up the mountain taking hours to cover the same route it might
have taken the main teams days to establish. In less
extreme forms the Plan moves radios to high points and sites with line
of sight communications with the Plateau to attempt to establish comms.
So, having moved John Laing overnight and arrived sleepless but
otherwise fit at Waterboat Point and having still had no luck calling
the climbers, we prepared the two inflatable boats for action; to move
rapidly along the Gerlache Strait towards the climbers' original drop
off point on
the Reclus Peninsula, but stopping periodically on the way to make radio calls both
to the climbers and back to the yacht. With Windy Gale and Will
Mace in one boat and Doc and I in the other, Simon 
the Bosun and Simon Goldby with
Journo Sam in support stayed on board John Laing to keep calling the
land teams and well placed with the Chileans to call further support
and assistance in the unlikely event that we were unable to resolve a
potential problem ourselves.
It is nearly 40 nautical
miles along the Strait so even moving at 20+ knots it takes the fully
laden inflatables two hours to cover the coastline underneath the
Forbidden Plateau route of the climbing teams. Even in the
relatively smooth and sunlit conditions of the early morning it is a
cold and bumpy ride. With additional stops along the way to attempt
communications it was a long morning. By the time of arrival at
the Reclus Peninsula the boat crews were resigned to having to
disembark and follow the climbers' route ashore (as you can imagine
there was a serious risk by now that all semblance of yacht based
sloth-like festive decadence would be seriously undermined by such
energetic impending activity) but in a last ditch attempt to establish
communications from the summit of nearby Enterprise Island (itself at
1300 feet a mountaineering Personal Best for the yacht crew) the faint but
unmistakably dulcet tones of Dom Biddick on the mountain strained
weakly through on the radio. Relief! Reinforced by a short
burst of slow speed
morse (Steve Ayres on the mountain kept his transmission speed down so
that I could read the unmistakable signal that all were OK).
Having established where
they were, a while later and after a short move it was found possible
to have a clear and useful chat with the climbers on VHF handheld
radios. They confirmed they were all fit and well and had been
waiting for an opportunity to make a rapid dash
towards Mount Walker, the last of their potential objectives on the
Forbidden Plateau but that the weather and visibility were conspiring
against them.
If it was not possible by today they would be making a start to their
descent for an
RV with the yacht on the 3rd or 4th of January (in time for Christmas
of course). For the detail of their 
stories from the mountains we
(like Dispatch readers) will have to wait to hear their tales first
hand when they get back down to join us. Their radio problems
(and hence our exertions) had been caused by a flat battery which, in
the absence of
sun for the solar charger they had been unable to recharge.
Meanwhile, faced with our
own 40 mile return journey south in the open inflatables to rejoin the
yacht, by now in a stiff and icy northerly wind with a significant
swell and lots of freezing spray, celebrating the New Year was the
last thing on our minds two and a half hours later (particularly when
we discovered that a changing wind direction and ice movement would
require us to move the yacht anchorage again before doing anything
festive). The Chilean Base personnel were having none of it
however and were determined that we should share the pleasure of an
Antarctic Barbecue Chilean style. Well into our "second
wind" (or was it the third or fourth?) the night was certainly a
New Year to remember - a barbecue in the Antarctic snow in permanent daylight after a
52 hour day. As I type, on New Years Day 2002, the climbers are
recharging their radio battery and we, the yacht crew (having moved
our anchorage twice more to reset the anchors and avoid ice) are about
to recharge our own. Good night and Happy New Year.
Andy Bristow
Joint Expedition Leader
