SID Newsletter Jan-Feb 2010
The Frostbite dinghy racing series and Obsession day sailing have continued through the winter. With the acquisition of Obsession we now have activities throughout the year for both dinghy and keelboat sailors. However spring is here and SID activities are gearing up for the summer.
Ruffian Lift-In
The Ruffian lift-in is scheduled for the week of April the 5th. There will be a preliminary maintenance day on Sat March 27 to prepare her for the water. Thanks to all those who have volunteered to help Bryan with this.
Ruffian Racing
Once Ruff Diamond is in the water we will be all set for taking part in the DBSC race series. Races take place on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays and are open to people at all levels of experience. The cost of taking part is shared by everyone who signs up for racing in this series and is dependent on the number of participants. Contact Damien for more details.
Offshore Racing
In a new departure this season, Obsession will will be competing in the ISORA offshore race series. For this first season we plan to enter four races only:
- 8 May: Arklow day race
- 13th June: Dun Laoghaire day race
- 23rd July: Night race to North India buoy
- 21st August: Day race to M2i buoy
Membership
Don't forget to renew your membership if you haven't done so already. The membership fee for 2010 is 350 euros. The usual discount of 50 euro per course (maximum 2 courses) will apply to existing SID members who have taken approved courses in 2009.
Colin and Juliane have set up a trial online membership application system which we hope will eventually replace the current paper-based system once security issues have been resolved. Anyone with experience of on-line security who can help with this should contact them.
Container
The container saga is finally nearing its end. We have approval from the DLHC for our plans and the final paperwork for the Lottery is being prepared. We hope to have the new container installed during the second half of April; Jo will be looking for volunteers soon to help with the work. Many thanks to all the members of the container project team for all the work they have put into this over the last year.
SID Promotional Literature
Jessica and Regina have been working on producing SID "business" cards and flyers. These will be left in the container and also distributed at the AGM; please disseminate these amongst your friends, relatives, coworkers... In particular anyone visiting Collanmore or Baltimore should take a plentiful supply with them.
Antarctica Trip
SID had one representative (myself) on a yacht cruise along the Antarctic Peninsula in January. Below is a trip report and, for those who get to the end, links to some cool pictures...
Nine of us met up in Buenos Aires, on Dec 29th, ready for our trip to Antarctica. Four were climbers, interested in doing some climbing in the Antarctica peninsula, the rest of us were just along for the ride. We spent a couple of days sight-seeing in Buenos Aires, finishing with a late-night party on the town on New Year's Eve. Early on New Year's Day we caught a flight to Ushaia at the southern tip of Argentina to rendezvous with our boat.
We went down to the yacht club to check out the boat, "Australis" soon after we arrived, and met our skipper, Ben, an Australian. Australis is a 76 foot boat, specially designed for sub-antarctic waters, and looked re-assuringly robust.
The next day was spent making last-minute arrangements and moving our gear aboard in preparation for departure on the 3rd. We met Ben and the other crew-member, Skye, at the Prefecture on the quays early on the 3rd to arrange the departure formalities, a rather long drawn out process, then cast off around 3 in the afternoon and headed down the Beagle Channel in beautiful sunshine. The Beagle Channel is quite spectacular, with high ice peaks on either side. We exited the channel at sunset (around 8 pm), catching a glimpse of Cape Horn in the distance on the starboard side, and started our crossing of the notorious Drake Passage - six hundred miles to the Antarctic Peninsula.
We motor-sailed continuously the whole way, averaging around 8 - 10 knots. Since we were sailing 24 hours a day, we set watches. These were divided between Ben, Skye, myself and another member of our group; the four people relatively free of sea-sickness. The watch rota was 2 hours on and 4 hours off, so we didn't get a lot of sleep for the next three days. The boat was running on auto-pilot, so there wasn't a lot to do apart from watching for hazards and keeping an eye on the instruments. The weather was relatively calm by Drake standards for the first two days, with an easterly wind of around F4 to F5. However, there was still a considerable swell and 15 foot waves. We were followed continuously by wandering albatrosses, black-browed albatrosses and great northern petrels. The third day conditions got a bit livelier, with winds getting up to F8 or F9 and 30 foot waves. It wasn't the most pleasant experience, but we were glad to have got a taste of what the Drake could be like. We made landfall at Deception Island in the South Shetlands at the end of the third day. Deception is basically a volcano, with the huge caldera forming a natural harbour. The entrance is narrow and hazardous, with numerous underwater rocks. I was standing in the wheelhouse looking at the chart on the computer screen, with our position superimposed on it. I pointed out to Ben that we appeared to be travelling over land. He sniffed and replied, "oh, the charts can't be relied on in this part of the world", and in fact, for the rest of the trip we relied far more on Ben's first hand knowledge than on the charts.
We hiked up to the top of the caldera where we got a good view over the island and the sea, with Australis just a tiny dot on the water far below us. We also had our first sighting of penguins (a colony of chinstraps on the beach) and a sleeping crabeater seal. We also had a look at the old whaling station. The British base on the island was abandoned in 1969 after a volcanic eruption heated the glaciers and caused a huge mudslide.
The hike in Deception Island was the first and last that we undertook without ropes. Further south, the glaciers completely cover the land right down to sea level and are heavily crevassed. With the exception of some low lying islands containing penguin colonies, all subsequent trips ashore were roped. In fact the climbing team experienced no fewer than 6 crevasse falls, fortunately none of them serious.
We got back to Australis and spent the night anchored in the caldera which was as calm as a lake. This was deceptive, however; in February 2009 Australis was caught in a storm here and damaged her mainsail and boom beyond repair. In fact she didn't have a boom any more, just a sort of second, larger jib, and in fact we didn't really use sails in Antarctica due to the relatively confined sailing areas and narrow channels between the islands and the mainland (and the pressure of time).
The next day we headed south, seeing our first iceberg soon after leaving Deception. The land now became much more mountainous, with huge glaciers everywhere. It was quite bizarre, with even the smallest hills taking on the appearance of Himalayan peaks.
A little later we saw our first whale, a humpback, about 50m in front of the boat. We saw a great number of humpback and minke whales over the next two weeks, and in fact all the wildlife (penguins, seals, whales, birds) existed in much greater profusion than I had expected. Moreover, they were all unused to humans and it was therefore possible to approach very closely without difficulty. Some highlights included a leopard seal investigating our inflatable (we had to repel it with paddles to stop it puncturing a pontoon) and getting within 5 m of a sleeping humpback whale in our kayaks.
Our next stop was Enterprise Island where where we tied up to the rusty wreck of an old supply ship. This was a somewhat hair raising operation which involved leaping from Australis to the ship with the warp, and climbing rapidly up the side to the top before the warp could be tied off.
The next morning the climbers ascended the ice cliffs and made their way to the top of the island, returning by an easier route. In the afternoon all of us hiked back up this route to the top in brilliant sunshine and were rewarded with great views over the sea, with hundreds of icebergs in the distance. This was the first time in my life that I had used sunblock and goggles, since the light reflecting off the ice and the sea creates a heavy UV load, and the ozone layer is still thin in these parts.
The following day we headed further south through Paradise Bay with its spectacular icebergs, stopping to visit the penguin colonies on Cuverville Island. We anchored for the night at Skonthorp Cove close to the small British station at Port Lockroy. The next morning we set off early to attempt Jabet Peak on Wiencke Island nearby, but were confronted by 100m ice cliffs rising vertically from the sea. The non-climbers among us backed off, and the four climbers went ahead. The rest of us spent the day kayaking, exploring the small neighbouring islands (one of which had a couple of whale skeletons on it) and visiting the British station on Port Lockroy. This station has a staff of four people and runs a small post office and museum. We spent a couple of days in this neighbourhood and then headed south through the Lemaire Channel, a spectacular narrow passage between Booth Island and the mainland, filled with icebergs. We had to execute a smart right turn at one point when our depth sounder wentfrom 70m to 15m in a few seconds, as we passed over the foot of an iceberg. It was here that we saw a leopard seal with the remains of a penguin resting on an ice floe.
We anchored at Hovgaard IslandHovgaard Island where we were to spend several days due to bad weather. The next morning our climbers climbed an iceberg, while the rest of us explored the neighbouring islands in kayaks or inflatables.
The following day two of our climbers went across to Booth Island to attempt Wandel Peak but were forced back by poor visibility. This peak was unclimbed at the time of our visit, but was actually climbed a couple of weeks later, so we just missed out.
We eventually left Hovgaard when the weather cleared and headed for Vernadsky Station a Ukrainian base with 13 staff, and our southernmost point. It's quite a large base by Antarctic Peninsula standards and even has a bar, built by the British who originally ran the base. We visited the base and spent an enjoyable evening in the bar; sadly they were just out of their home made vodka.
The next day we made an attempt on Mount Demaria, our first visit to the Antarctic mainland. The mountain rises 635m straight out of the sea and is ascended via a huge snow slope. Ice axes and crampons were required and we divided into two ropes of 4 each. The snow was pretty soft and deep lower down and we were sinking knee or thigh deep with every step. Higher up the snow hardened, but the gradient steepened and the climb was quite exposed. We crossed over at least one concealed crevasse. The first rope headed straight for the summit, which they reached, but our rope stopped for a rest at an outcrop of rocks around 100m below the top. We didn't quite make it to the top in the end and indeed the descent was long and exhausting. We eventually got back to Australis after a long day. That evening we had a another party in Vernadsky station, with vodka provided this time, to toast our (almost) successful ascent of Mount Demaria. The following day was spent resting up. In the evening 3 of the Ukrainians came aboard Australis for a farewell dinner and singsong. the Ukrainians came aboard Australis for a farewell dinner and singsong.
The next day we headed north again stopping overnight at Petermann Island , where we had a chance to see some Adelie penguins, in contrast to the gentoo and chinstrap penguins we had seen earlier. Then it was back to Port Lockroy.
Australis was to act as a base for people from the Antarctic Heritage Trust who were building a new hut there, so it was arranged for us to hitch a lift with passenger ships going back to Ushuaia. Two people were offloaded to the Polar Star, a converted Russian icebreaker, then we sailed on to Paradise Harbour, where 3 more people were put aboard the Professor Mulchenov, another Russian icebreaker. Finally 3 of us went aboard the Fram, a purpose built Norwegian cruise liner.
Thr trip back across the Drake was uneventful, though we did have one stormy day, about F10 or higher, with waves over forty feet.
Once back in Ushuaia we got a bus to El Calafate in Patagonia, and then on to El Chalten, crossing the Magellan Straits on the way. We spent a few days hiking in El Chalten before returning to Dublin.
All in all, a great trip and well worth thinking about if you have a bit of spare time and cash and a few like-minded friends.
Needless to say, I took a lot of pictures with my small digital camera. Thanks to Stephen Gaughan, a much better photographer than me, for sharing the best of his wildlife and landscape photographs and to Stephen Power, Garrett Greene and Soren Jensen for some of their pictures.
