Late 2009 season

Well, again a good season!
We arrived after the first week of October and settled in very quickly. We are now well organised after all these trips (and I am german...). The weather was totally different then last October with much more snow. I guess, we had snow every other day or so and I am glad that I brought my snowshoes!

We have to work outside and are therefore very weather dependend. So, a good weather forecast is essential. We get GRIB files using the Saildocs service and our Iridium phone, but we also get FAX images on shortwave from Chile, Brazil and South Africa. For the last year, we started to received also pictures from the NOAA polar orbiting satellites, as the FT-897 is capable of receiving on these frequencies.

Here is a little example of a received NOAA picture. Land is outlined by a green line. South America is in the top left corner, the Antarctic Peninsula is at the bottom left and South Georgia is roughly in the middle.
There is a big low pressure system to the southeast of the island. As usual, we had a lot of days with very strong winds (see below) of more than 55 knots with gusts of 65 knots and more. On some days we had gusts up to hurrican scale 2 and 3.

October is the pupping and breeding season of southern elephant seals. The females come ashore to give birth to pups, which weigh around 45kg. The pups are then feeding for a little more than three weeks and will weight up to 150kg. Just think about that! About 100kg in three weeks! Wow...
The females lie on the beach in groups (harems) and are guarded by usually one big male elephant seal (beachmaster). Just before the females leave again, the males mate with them (see right).