Cemetery Maintenance 1998-99

SOUTH GEORGIA’S CEMETERIES The island of South Georgia lies in the southern Atlantic Ocean on the edge of the Antarctic. During the first half of this century it was used as a base for the whaling industry and shore stations were set up as factories for processing the meat, blubber and bone of the whales. […]

SOUTH GEORGIA CEMETERY PROJECT 1998/99 Initial Deployment of equipment to the whaling stations 25 September 1998 We arrived back in South Georgia in early July. Pat’s job as Marine officer at King Edward Point (KEP) has given us both time to gather all the food, fuel, materials and tools together in plenty of time before

Dear all, Excuse us putting you on a huge mailing list but we are at the mercy of an expensive satellite link so can’t afford a message each, especially when they would all be much the same anyway. We are now installed in the not-so-little hut that used to be the manager’s villa forty years

Dear all, Are we glad we took the opportunity to use Tuesday’s good weather to go for a walk. The weather has been pretty appalling since then, with a series of low pressure systems blowing through bringing rain, sleet and snow. On Saturday we woke to a couple of inches of wet slushy snow on

Dear all, We are now stuck into the work and have got as far as a series of fence posts in place around the first cemetery at Leith. Following a gloomy start to Monday, the weather cleared up by mid morning so we decided to pack up our rucksacks and head for Leith. We had

Dear all, After our interminable whining about the weather last time I am glad to report a vast improvement. Days on end of sunshine and warmth and a bit of good luck have seen the cemetery work come on in leaps and bounds. The chain fence around the smaller ‘Town’ cemetery is complete and the

Dear All We did eventually get away for our break back in the civilised world of Husvik. The RFA Gold Rover came round with the army boat aboard, on a windy horrible day and took us round the two bays in about twenty minutes, compared to the five hours it takes us to trek. Sadly

Dear all, We are now back at Husvik, having finished the two cemeteries at Leith. We had three glorious sunny days in a row so worked long and hard, standing the 16 fallen headstones of the ‘country’ cemetery upright after drilling holes and putting steel bar in to stop them falling over again. Very interesting

Dear All, Here’s wishing you all a great year in 1999. Hope you enjoyed Christmas…we did. And we have almost managed a whole day on our own since…but there is time for a mast to stick up beyond the horizon yet! Pat is off putting planks across the worst of the holes in the jetty

Dear All, What’s in your front garden? Forty eight king penguins in our front garden. We think they are up sheltering from the storms at sea. They have made an interesting diversion from the indoor nose blowing and cold coddling. Seems I successfully infected Pat after all, so our start at Stromness has been delayed