On January 21st, 2013, I returned to Damoy hut, on Doumer Island, having left on January 2nd, 1988. I first arrived there on December 5th, 1987, with about 20 British Antarctic Survey colleagues, expecting to be there a few days, before being flown further south to Rothera. As it turned out, things didn’t work out quite as planned, resulting in myself, Clem Collins and Alan Osbourne not only being the 2nd ever party to spend Christmas at Damoy, but smashing all records by being the first to spend New Year there. So it figures quite strongly in my memories of Antarctica.

Damoy Hut, 1987

So, a few weeks ago, thanks to Graham Charles, the OneOcean expedition leader on the Akademik Vavilov, I was dropped off, together with Luchiana, at Damoy point, and we trekked up and over the point to the hut, about 1km away. As far as I remember there was considerably more snow back in 1988… The hut itself has for some reason been repainted a sort of turquoise colour, rather than the pink hue it used to have. And the penguin weather vane has gone.

Welcome home. We’ve been expecting you

Inside the hut very little had changed. On opening the door it felt just like I’d never been away. Apart from a few notices on the wall placed by the British Antarctic Heritage Trust, pretty much everything was exactly as it was. Even the smell was the same. Inside the bunk room, the only thing missing apart from my sleeping bag was the radio. Three pairs of the original snowshoes, without which it was very difficult to get around outside, are still there. Actually it was only marginally easier getting around with them on: snowshoe design has improved somewhat over the years.

Proper snowshoes - they make you fall flat on your face every 3 steps

One thing had changed, which I knew about, but had forgotten - the group photo we took on Christmas Day 1987 was on the wall.

Christmas 1987

Digging out my notes on my enforced holiday at Damoy confirms that although it is a beautiful spot, I was increasingly frustrated, and bored, by being stuck there. It would probably be something like paradise now, with a generator and a digital camera, but back then I wasn’t really that in to photography, and I was supposed to be a further 15 degrees south. And we were running very low on paraffin, meaning that in the last couple of weeks we could not use the heater. And Alan, Clem and myself were not the most compatible trio you could pick. The weather was usually foul, and when it wasn’t, it was either foul at Rothera, or the aircraft were busy somewhere else. With the skiway snow warming up and deteriorating, It looked increasingly like we were going to have to be evacuated by ship. Finally, we were rescued by a Twin Otter piloted by my field party pilot Mike Collins, with the new BAS director David Drewery along for the ride (everybody at Rothera disliked Drewery, and gave him the cold shoulder. I felt sorry for him, and tried to get him involved in planning my field work, as it was in an area he’d been involved in. This did not prevent him stabbing me in the back a short while later, thereby demonstrating what a good judge of character I am).

Back to the present day, it is remarkable how well preserved the hut is. Even to the extent of tins of the despised “Nespray” still being on the shelf. Actually there’s probably a hidden dump of Nespray tins outside somewhere. The various “Use Before Feb 1968” ingredients we used to cobble together some form of Christmas baking are still around too.

There’s never a shortage of Nespray…

All that the creative cook requires

I didn’t want to make Sophie, our zodiac driver, wait too long, and conscious of the fact that we’d been out of sight of any of the expedition staff for over an hour, I felt it was time to close and bolt the door one last time, and make our way back to the Point. On the way I couldn’t but help stopping a few times at the various Gentoo rookeries on the way. But none of the penguins seemed to remember me.

Back on 23rd December 1987, the nearby (but inaccessible to us) Port Lockroy was visited by the cruise ship m/v World Discoverer, as I mentioned somewhat inaccurately in an earlier post. There were very few tourist ships around in those days - nowadays there would be one almost every day - and this was our only visitor. Quoting from my notes:

23rd December, Damoy: Well, we’re _still_ here, but at least today was exciting! The tourist ship “World Discoverer” passed through Neumayer Channel, answered our call and invited us on board for an evening barbecue! As they had anchored in Port Lockroy, they kindly sent a zodiac around for us. We were well looked after by both the crew and the passengers, the passengers being mostly Americans. Before I got totally inebriated I gave the assembled masses a talk on BAS activities, using a familiar AKG microphone. Biggest audience and best applause I’ve ever got though! Anyway, we then passed on to the food, which was exquisite after 3 weeks of munch, and the mulled wine. This was probably my biggest mistake, but when you’ve been doing sod-all in the middle of nowhere for 3 weeks, you don’t pass up the offer of refill after refill from a rather nice young German girl. (…) We finally returned to Damoy with crates of Guinness,  Budweiser and Carlsberg, 2 bottles of Port and a bottle of Bacardi, not to mention steaks and fresh vegetables.

Later in the evening I felt rather unwell.

On returning to the Akademik Vavilvov, after, finally, after all these years actually making it to Port Lockroy, the when turned full circle as Graham invited me up during the recap to give a brief account of the day’s adventures. Little did I imagine this scenario just over 25 years ago.

Hogging the spotlight once again

I’d like to effusively thank Graham Charles for this opportunity, and for trusting me not to get lost or do anything stupid. And equally a big “thank you” to Sophie Ballagh for driving the Zodiac and patiently waiting for our return. It was quite an experience…

Inside the hut, 1987

Inside the hut, 2013 - photo by Luchiana Cinghita

Damoy stove, 1987

Damoy stove, 2013 - photo by Luchiana Cinghita

Somebody’s stolen my sleeping bag! - photo by Luchiana Cinghita

And not forgetting the legendary epic explorer Sir Basil Doumer of Damoy

Well, we survived a relatively bumpy ride back across the Drake Passage into Ushuaia. The fact that we survived shows that it was not all that bad. Antarctica was damp. Foggy, low cloud, persistent rain, temperatures well above zero most of the time. The rain was the biggest shock. When I was working as a field scientist 20 years ago, people going south of the South Georgia / South Orkneys “banana belt” were not even issued with wet weather gear. Nowadays you need gore-tex underwear. But otherwise it hasn’t changed much. Not one moment of clear sky in 12 days, and perhaps 2 hours of hazy sun at most, in total. At least we didn’t get sunburnt.  Much more to come, but first, of course, some penguins. Take it away, guys.

With my forthcoming cruise around the Antarctic Peninsula as the excuse, a few days ago I started posting some scans of slides dragged from the ancient past, when I spent two summer field seasons in Antarctica on British and Norwegian science programmes.

I’ve got something like 1500 slides from those trips, a mix of Kodachrome 25, Kodachrome 64, and Ektachrome (100, I think). About 250 I had selected around 15 years ago, and stored in archival boxes. The rest, some of which I’ve barely glanced at, are in the “rejects” folder. Many are in poor condition, having suffered fungus attacks. A large proportion are badly exposed, badly composed, heavily vignetted, or out of focus. Usually all of these. But some are interesting - to me at least, from a number of points of view. They show how I took photographs when I had no real idea of what phtography was about. Sometimes they are of some merit, but mostly they show that I was trying to tell stories to people back home, to capture atmospheres, moods and colours. There’s no real sense that I had any concept of “landscape photography” as an aim in itself.

some freshly minted scans

From a technical point of view, I’m benefitting from a lot more experience in scanning. I have had attempts at scanning selections in the past, in particular about 6 years ago, when I published a small book, but now I have a fully colour managed Kodachrome calibrated, Silverast HDR workflow, and I can use Silverfast 8 HDR. I started scanning on my Canoscan 9000F flatbed, but eventually switched to the Minolta film scanner. Even though the benefit with some of these slides is minimal, and I lose the 64bit HDRi option, the ability to auto focus, set the focus point, or fully manual focus on the Minolta is a significant benefit for extracting the finest detail.

Initially I was hoping to create a Blurb book, just for me, to take along on the trip, but the amount of work required just to do the initial 48bit HDR scans is huge. It seems I’ve been feeding the scanners since summer, and I’m not even half way through. So at best it will be an iPad portfolio, and starting a few days back, a daily post on Flickr. Maybe life is easier with digital…

All being well, in the second part of January 2013, we will be in Antarctica. For my (far) better half, it will be the first time, overcoming the terrors of the Drake Passage to visit the far-off world of penguins and icebergs. For me, it will be a belated return after 2 trips now over 20 years ago. This time, I’ll be a tourist, with nothing to worry about other than getting a few nice holiday snaps. Of course, photography was also a fairly big deal back then, although at least for me it was more a case of muddling along under a degree of peer pressure, rather than any serious intentions. In fact I couldn’t really understand why some of my colleagues at the time aspired to being professional photographers. I suppose we all had our own interests. Naturally there were wildlife enthusiasts, and a good sampling of fanatical outdoor adventure explorer types. My deepest interest, which as far as I recall I kept pretty much to myself,  was actually the history of Antarctic exploration, and the stories of people who’d tried to make a life in the region. Mainly whalers and sealers - not a terribly popular theme in the late 80s / early 90s. So anyway, I was fascinated by any trace of an old hut, of traces of camps on beaches, the stories behind names given to places, and all of this. But since actually I was there to work, all this was of secondary importance, and the ships that carried me were intent on getting me to where I needed to be and offloading me as fast as possible. Sure, there were some incredible sites, but that was more because they’re inescapable, not because they were being sought out. And the unfamiliar, heavy physical labour of helping out with offloading supplies at various bases meant that a lot of good sailing time I spent in my bunk!

However, due to the vagaries of weather, planning and other people’s priorities, I did end up spending nearly 6 weeks in a small hut on a small island in the Antarctic Peninisula, on the other side of the channel where the now-obligatory tourist ship stopover, Port Lockroy, is situated. In those days, Lockroy was deserted, and sadly inaccessible from where we were “stranded”, but climbing up to the ridge I could stare att it in the distance and imagine… One fine day, though, a remarkable event did take place. A tourist ship did actually turn up, which in those days was a very rare event indeed. It was a US-registered vessel, as far as I remember called the “Society Explorer”. I don’t know who was the most surprised - us, or the ship when we called then on VHF radio. Anyway, they a zodiac over, and the three of us - Alan, a meteorologist, Clem, a veteran field assistant /  cook, and myself were invited on board for a barbecue. Is was a surreal experience. I had to sing for my supper though. As the token scientist, I was invited to give a talk on glaciology to the passengers.

No, there are no polar bears in Antarctica, and ice is blue because that’s the way God Planned It. Any questions ? Good. Where’s the bar ?

I’m pretty sure the clientele was all in the millionaire bracket in those days. There were very few tourist ships in Antarctica. Most of the passengers seemed to be American retirees, and the ship was complete with a mini shopping mall and full of plush fittings. I could not understand how people could sit inside sipping cocktails when just a few hundred meters away there was Port Lockroy bathed in fantastic evening light. In those days I had no though of wanting to take photos. I just wanted to go there. Anyway, I gave my talk, and we adjourned to the after deck where the three of us - me in particular I suspect - got very, very drunk.  I still remember the aftermath back at the hut. It wasn’t pretty. But I never imagined that one day, I’d be one of those tourists.

I’m in two minds about Antarctic tourism. Obviously, I can’t be against it without being hypocritical, and the increasing levels have bought cruises down to a just about affordable range, although it’s not something most people would be able to do with a decade’s worth of savings. In the past criticism of tourism from, mainly, field scientists, did seem to have at least an element of elitism about, in particular from the British establishment. But it does seem to have gone a bit too far.

Neither of my two trips to the Antarctic were particularly successful scientifically. The first, with the British Antarctic Survey was actually a total disaster. I have to take the ultimate responsibility for this, being the lead scientist in the team, but the deck was stacked against me due to being dependent on a surly and depressed technician who screwed up big time, and being denied any time at all for pre-field testing by a field manager who seemed to think he was running some kind of Thrilling Yarns type of summer camp for Boys. The fact that I didn’t mesh terribly well with the British public schoolboy ethos of the whole thing didn’t help. It was really right at the tail-end of that sort of idiocy, and I wasn’t the only member of the science contingent to be seriously pissed off with it. Unfortunately I was also a little politically naive, which led to some issues later on. I’m still pretty annoyed about the whole experience 😊

My second trip was totally different. I was part of a small, underfunded, slightly insane Norwegian-led independent expedition. In this case the general atmosphere was much better, and the science turned out ok as well, if not Earth-shattering. We had some problems with reliability of electronics, especially freezing LCD screens and dying batteries, but overall our approach and preliminary results gained some plaudits from the international community. Unfortunately not from my boss at the time though, the now Professor Duncan Wingham, head of NERC these days, who wasn’t very convinced of the value of fieldwork, and thought everything could be done by mathematical modeling. Probably still does. Nice enough chap, in his own way, terrifyingly clever, but more than a touch bonkers.

Fieldwork. It has its uses.

For the third trip, there’s not so much pressure. Just to hope for some good weather, sip some cocktails, and get a few reasonable photos. Oh, and decide what camera to take. And which lenses. And which camera bag. And…. Panic!