Extreme Rodent Eradication

[Bertie Thruster]

Big rock. Little helicopters. Some madness.

Mad Ratters Tea Party (http://phillipsgeorge.bl0gspot.com.au) (change 0 to o)

Happiness is Helicopter shaped
After weeks of horrid weather, including 2 days of an Antarctic freezer blast, the weather on South Georgia has changed. It's now almost like an sunny autumn day in England.

The research vessel 'Ernest Shackleton' was just off South Georgia during that Antarctic blast, 6 weeks ago. The Captain later told me that in thirty-five years at sea, that particular 'force 12' night rated high up in his top 10 of 'perfect storms'.

So we go from one extreme to another. Blizzard to balmy. Or should that be barmy, as in mad? Mad ratters on a mad-weather island?

So finally the wind-sprites have given us a break. Sun, blue sky and nil wind. The northern coastal zones of South Georgia we had been waiting so long to finish, have been flown and baited. The southern baiting zones, so fickle to get to due the massive interior ice fields, are begun. It's time to move the camp in order to save transit time.

The 3 aircraft, the 3 Kiwi expert baiting pilots and the loading teams decamp to the south side of the Island. To Peggotty Bluff or as the pilots have named it, due to the turbulence and cold they have experienced there, 'Purgatory Bay'.

Not everyone leaves; there is redundancy built into the plan. One doctor remains behind. A chef. Spare manpower for general duties and bait loading and me; a spare pilot.

The helicopters flew off and suddenly what I knew would occur, when the camp moved, had actually happened; I'm now a pilot without portfolio. Man without machine.

The 3 Kiwi baiting pilots, Peter, Tony and Dave, quite rightly, have flown the 3 helicopters across the Island. I am now the reserve pilot in the reserve camp. I'm so far from the action; I don't even have air traffic type flight following to keep me busy. The camp seems empty to me; my pilot colleagues, new aviator friends from distant lands, have departed.

The core of personnel left with me has a wealth of skills that have been honed in some of the most extreme environments in the world. Construction, software development, engineering, hard core Antarctic living. What can I learn that could be useful to me back in the UK? Glacier crevasse extraction? Building a camp on floating ice 500 foot thick?

Perhaps not.

Learning to quad bike? Yes. Essential to our base camp and we have a quad kindly loaded by the South Georgia Government. Essential for collecting our fresh water. Time to get to grips with it. Massively long grey graveled beaches, old glacial moraine, perfect for the quad bike ab-initio student!

What next? Software lessons…..hmmm. Basic engineering………….I don't think so.

But who else is here? A chef (actually a professional landscape photographer) who has worked in 2 star Michelin restaurants back in the UK. Now we are talking useful UK skills!!!

I eat eggs a lot now since I trimmed 50 pounds of excess body fat in 2008. OK, eggs are in short supply in South Georgia and rationed for special days. A few weeks ago Oli the photograper chef served a few of us still at the camp one lunchtime, absolutely perfect poached eggs.

The kitchen our Michelin trained landscaper photographer chef works from is a 4 metre by 4 metre red and white plastic tent. From the door one can see, just 20 metres away, an inlet of calm water full of cavorting seals and just a mile from jagged mountain ridges that soar from the waters edge to sapphire skies.

Time to learn. Vinegar in the water? Nah. Swirl the water in the pan? Nope.

I now know the trick. And like the answer to a magicians trick, I am sworn to secrecy. An 8000-mile journey to the perfect poached egg. Mad ratter's tea party indeed.

The weather is like a glorious summers day. Mirror-glass, azure blue water. Sunbathing seals. Shimmering mountains in the background. Blue, blue sky. But no flying at the base camp. At the moment I'm like a spare bridegroom at a wedding. No escape for me. No helicopter flight to help me put out my hand and touch the face of God.

We get news from the baiting frontline. A fantastic day! More done than on any other day so far. A triumph. The capricious island had held us ransom for so many days, but the team is on a roll.

Tomorrow the forecast sounds better than today. The prayer is that the sea fog will not roll in on the south coast and the baiting will continue at breakneck pace. But what will we do at base camp?

We have a mountain guide, and a doctor to boot. An expedition leader with worldwide mountain experience.

Those peaks just behind our base camp are calling.


Apologies in advance, I cannot set up an active link.

(I can email, via sat phone, content to my blog but this PPrune page took 40 minutes just to download, to a research station desktop, when we visited today.)

[Thud_and_Blunder]

Sigh.

Hate you, Bertie. No, really - I do.

Not really jealous at all, much.

Very best wishes way down South.

[Senior Pilot]

To help Bertie with his lack of comms, here is a series of posts with the bl0g to date:

King of an Ice Crystal Castle.
I was busy yesterday hauling loads of bait to the Kiwis working hard in an adjoining baiting area. I found myself in the most unusual spot I've ever been in a helicopter. I thought; 'I wonder what anyone back home would think of this?'

The bait layers were short of bait from an earlier depot we had underslung off the research vessel, the Ernest Shackleton, last month. (In 8 days of flying we had shifted 700 heavy loads of fuel drums and bait, between 3 pilots.)

They had called for an extra 'pod' of bait. So I'm in a 40-year-old BO105, an ex-air ambulance, with a 500kg bait pod slung on a 40ft strop. My door is removed, it's freezing cold but I need to get my head right out of the door, shoulder harness off, to look down to 'long line' the load visually and accurately to the waiting baiting crew.

They are 10 miles away over the massive Fortuna Glacier. I'm climbing 2000ft out of a sea level bait dump in the Fortuna basin, bound for Antarctic bay, over a 5-mile wide glacier and snowfield. I'm flying at 60 mph with a heavy 500kg load. Somewhere beneath me on this featureless desert of ice are the remains of 2 Wessex helicopters from '82 conflict. The expansive snow panorama, stretching 5 miles in any direction, is brilliant white in the sun and there are jagged peaks menacing to the south of me, about 2000ft higher. (It is 'safer' for us to fly overland, over the glaciers, than round the steeply sided coast, over a freezing cold sea.)

I am many miles from the nearest person, alone on top of a frozen world it seems, in my little Bolkow helicopter. The world is my frozen oyster. I am king of an ice crystal castle.

I drop down about 500ft over the curving snow dome then almost autorotate, gliding down 1500ft of steep jagged cliff to get to the crew waiting on the beach below.

The Kiwi agricultural pilots are tireless and skilful work horses, flying up to 8 hours in a day, when the weather allows, on GPS/computer guided 'baiting lines', to an accuracy of 5-10 meters horizontally.

I get to do all the other flying, the 'utility' work, which suits me.

Mark and Paul, our Team Rat helicopter engineers, are doing an excellent job keeping the aircraft serviceable. The British Antarctic Survey team, the Government staff and the fine gang of builders (Peckers Antarctic Services) presently at King Edward Point have also been very helpful to our 2 engineers whenever we have had to 'drop in' for essential helicopter maintenance. Their help is much appreciated.

We are more than half way through the areas allocated for this season but now the weather is getting poorer as we move towards the winter months down here. 70kt horizontal snow is not fun! Buried us for two days last week. I'm amazed how the choppers are coping with the elements, parked out, just blades tied down and covers on.

This veteran just hopes he can keep coping with the weather as well as those vintage helicopters can!

[Senior Pilot]

Restaurant at The End of The World
Driving winds have prevented the mad Antarctic ratters from baiting for several days. The radical conservation, toxic warriors have been kept on the ground by the atmosphere that just seems to hurtle round relentlessly in these latitudes. The cloud base has been fine but the unpredictable 40kt gusts and vicious downdraughts, lurking in the generally manageable 20-25 winds, make flying with the heavy bait buckets simply too much of a liability.

We sit and plan. We also take the opportunity to walk and enjoy the stunning scenery all around us; steep alpine-like peaks running straight down to the sea, vast glacier heads, their blue grey ice fracturing into the sea in colossal blocks.

We also eat.

But not camping food as you might imagine it. For a start, simply for the views from the window alone, the old abandoned whaling station room we are using as a dining area, must rate at least one Michelin Star, in my opinion. Now add our brigade of 3 chefs experienced in the rigours of Antarctic life. Their artistry, skill and imagination all add up to producing some of the most memorable meals I have eaten while 'roughing it'. We are temporally living in a land that is completely uncompromising in regard to safety and rescue but we eat in a 'restaurant at the end of the world'. We enjoy views that few have experienced while savouring high quality food.

Home made, roasted granola at breakfast. Freshly made and baked New York bagels at coffee break. A daube of mutton with puy lentils at lunch. Venison fillet carpaccio with capers and shaved parmesan followed by the rare roast loin with redcurrant jelly, at dinner.

Oh and did I mention the sunrises? Every day a different Technicolor extravaganza as we enjoy our fresh ground coffee, looking out over the bay and headland from our unique 'restaurant', the fur seals, elephant seals, skuas, petrels, king penguins, and gentoo penguins gathered before us on the beach 100 yards away.

............

[Senior Pilot]

The Blue Bar
We are being held to ransom. Not by renegade seals but by the appalling weather!

We have been delayed for at least a week now, plans on hold, while the wind and clouds tease and taunt us. Sometimes we enjoy clear blue skies and calm air in the location where we are waiting but we have completed our task here and no further bait can be sown. 10 miles westward along the coast, on our next sector, the air is howling and bait flying is simply not possible. Other days it is clear in the new target areas (we have lads camping out as forward observers) but we are 'clagged in' at base by low, unyielding cloud.

Everyone is itching to get the job done; the longer we wait the closer real winter edges towards our insubstantial refuge on this unforgiving island.

Slack times mean non-essential tasks can be completed and then 'relaxation and escape areas' can be created. The 4 pilots and 2 engineers are 'housed' in the old radio shack of a disused whaling station. We now have a communal 'rest' area where the sorrows of frustration can be drowned and plans hatched and the world be generally put to rights.

In the middle of this small room is an old pine table that some previous temporary inhabitant of this arcane building has painted with bright blue gloss paint.
The Kiwi pilots have put a label up on the door to name this relaxation area:

"The Good Bastards Club (no tossers allowed)"

With the coloured table taking centre stage, it is known by the rest of the team as; "The Blue Bar".
Conversation in "The Blue Bar" is lively and colourful Kiwi metaphors abound.

When we discuss music and literature, the strange Island of South Georgia seems to take over our train of thought. We do not talk of Michelangelo but enthuse over the lyrics of Billy Bragg, the landscapes of South Georgia, like the 'dark side of the moon' and the links between Pink Floyd and the Wizard of Oz.

I also learn stuff about rats I never knew; that they can tread water for 2 days, climb vertical wires and compress their bodies so they can squeeze through holes the diameter of a UK pound coin.

From my 'pit space' (sleeping area) in the radio shack, I can see into The Blue Bar'. The quiet weather-strangled days have meant that personal supplies of 'medicinal tincture' have slowly migrated to the shelf above the blue table that acts as a bar.

Looking over from where I am typing, I can see on the shelf there are several bottles laid out neatly, just like in the bar of a friendly village pub.

In no order of preference I note:

Whisky:

Highland Park
Macallan Select
Jura 10 year old
Laphroaig Quarter Cask (48%)
Famous Grouse

Irish Whiskey:
Bushmills Original


Rum:
Havana Club
Cockspur Barbados
Captain Morgan Spiced

Gin
Gordon's London Dry Export (47.3%)
Bombay Sapphire

Others:
VSOP Brandy
Kahlua

Taylors Late Bottled Port 2005
Finlandia Vodka

Beer:
Bottles of Grolsch, St Miguel and Fullers IPA.
Tins of Guinness.


2 bottles of Merlot.

Tonic Water.

A container of fresh river water, (filtered for the removal of fly larvae and seal dung)

A Kiwi pilot enters the radio shack and heads towards "The Blue Room". He is an old hand, a veteran of the old venison flying days in New Zealand. He has many thousands of hours flying helicopters in the worst weather the New Zealand Mountains can throw at a helicopter pilot. He has survived all that. He runs his own helicopter company now but has chosen to spend some months in South Georgia on a bit of an adventure.

He had been tasked out in what seemed like a temporary calm 'weather window' this morning to fly some much needed supplies about 15 miles to 2 lads at one of the forward camps at Peggotty, on the South side of the Island.

Peggotty is a very windy spot. Shackleton, the intrepid explorer, chose to name the area after a Dickens fictional destitute family. We have renamed the area 'Purgatory'.

The pilot has just flown back to the base camp. He couldn't delivered the supplies.

He is shaking his head.

"I've just tried to land a helicopter at Purgatory, in the worst turbulence I have ever experienced. Not possible."


The Blue Bar is open. ............

[Senior Pilot]

Patience is a Virtual reality.
We wait and kick our heels but it's not all 'doom and gloom' at the Mad Ratters Tea Party, down here in South Georgia.
We always knew that for just one days baiting we might have to wait on average 4 days for the right weather, to safely operate the bait buckets and the helicopters.

The Mad Ratters hadn't baited for 10 days--- until yesterday! A weather window of opportunity opened up to the west in Possession bay and the team launched.
This time all 3 helicopters were available and 4 hours later an effective 12 hours worth of bucket baiting had been carried out.

This one afternoon brought our total score up to 48% of the rat-infested zones from the 42% we had been holding on to 10 days. 6% of the whole rat task in just one afternoon!

10 afternoons like that could have the mission complete! Just 5 full days with 3 serviceable helicopters we could nail the job. As little as that! It's worth the waiting.

It's not technology and specialist aviation that will save South Georgia from ecosystem collapse and 'ratmageddon'.

It's plain old patience!

Bear with us! Smoke us a kipper; we'll be home for breakfast.

Only just not tomorrow! .............

[Senior Pilot]

The Brighter Side of Life
Easter Sunday was supposed to be a normal working day for the mad ratters temporarily established on the permanently uninhabited island of South Georgia.

Instead the weather gods decided we would have yet another day free of aircraft operations. Almost teasingly the day developed a brilliant blue sky with hardly a cloud in sight. The wind however was very strong.

After a breakfast made disappointing by the dawning of yet another unworkable baiting day, a few of us settled down round a laptop screen to watch the only film we had that made any reference to Easter.

Monty Pythons 'Life of Brian'

Lunch helped us celebrate in a more traditional way. We each had one fresh egg, fried, to go with the tinned produce; baked beans, tomatoes and mushrooms.

The afternoon bought no abatement to the biting icy wind but with a glorious and inviting blue sky, most people headed out in various directions to walk in the hills around our camp.

I set off solo up the Karrakatta valley, just to the west of our base. This valley climbs up about 1000ft, to a pass westwards into Fortuna Bay. Near the top is a magnificent waterfall. It is a short steep walk with a little scrambling over loose scree in some places. I climbed past the waterfall and crossed to the west side of the valley to descend on a different route, out of the wind and bathed in sunshine.

On the way down I found the beautiful views began to stimulate many thoughts as I looked out and down across Stromness Bay to the rippling, saw-tooth Jason Ridge, across the azure blue, ice cold waters.

I had to stop every few steps simply in order to enjoy and take in the stunning vista. Massive blocks of soft colour reminded me of those giant Rothko paintings and the guidance presented in those compositions to help focus the minds eye, in order to perceive the route to infinity.

All contained in just one panoramic gaze were huge monochrome sections of mountains, lakes, rivers, waterfalls, mossy moorland, cliffs and sea, each a particular colour.

A simple two-hour walk had turned into a spiritual reconnection to the natural world, an enjoyable and uplifting outdoor experience.

This Island is no God forsaken place and I found there was no need to escape and fly to some higher plane this Easter Sunday in order to touch the face of the Almighty.

Back down to earth I walk in to the camp at 4pm, just in time for tea, to discover the chef had just baked 'Hot Cross Buns', as he forgot to make them on 'Good Friday".............

[Senior Pilot]

Sienna Miller Request
We continue to dig in and grit our teeth. Each day we awaken to beautiful dawn skies but bastard wind.

The polar vortex and the core of the jet stream have, this season, chosen to lie right over the sub Antarctic island of South Georgia.

We are teased by the elements on a daily basis with random turbulence and downdraughts too intense to risk helicopter-baiting operations.

We are attempting to help return this remote iconic landscape to pre-European conditions. Removing the hardy mainland-evolved rats before they rid South Georgia of the delicate fauna they maraud, is akin to trying to get an invading Attila-the-Hun and his Hordes off an unarmed innocent Polynesian idyll before they kill all the local inhabitants.

Only it's not Polynesian sun here but an icy blast that the elemental sprites use to hold us, in the grip of a windy vice.

A request for urgent resupply comes into the main base via satellite phone text. One of our forward weather observation posts at Peggotty, (or 'Purgatory', as we all call it), a couple of hardy lads, Roger and Dickie, with single man tents, brave the primitive elements to report back the local wind conditions.

Peggotty requirements:

1. Another water jerry can.
2. Butter
3. Sienna Miller

We will be able to supply 2 out of the 3 of those when a helicopter manages to get up there.
If she had braved conditions at Peggotty 2 nights ago, Sienna would have had to survive the 80+mph winds that whistled through that exposed bluff.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------



It is amazing just how rugged our 3 Bolkow helicopters are. It has proved impossible to anchor them to the ground here but so far they have survived everything the vortex has thrown at them.

These aren't youngsters either; the 3 helicopters have over 51,000 hours on the clock between them. They are all 40 years old. Born in the '70's they have been "Rockin' All Over The World" since then.

However I think I can guarantee that in their long flying life none of these 3 helicopters have previously been landed on a tiny sloping slipway (avoiding the tame seals underneath) and been winched up the gradient into a small, well-equipped and warm boat shed, for routine maintenance.

Extreme conservation sometimes calls for extreme measures.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If by any unlikely chance you read this blog, Sienna and can help, the address of Roger and Dickie is:

No 1 and 2 The Tents,
Peggotty Bluff,
King Haakon Bay,
South Georgia.


Many thanks in advance. .............

[finalchecksplease]

A blog very well written and worth taking the time to read it all. :ok:

Wish I was there as well, safe trip Bertie!

[ShyTorque]

Excellent stuff, Bertie. Been following your blog elsewhere. Very well written and very interesting it is, too. :ok:

[Senior Pilot]

South Georgia has thrown us a baiting lifeline. The weather over the last week has been better than when we arrived during the southern summer time of February.

In the last 6 day the mad ratters have achieved more than in the previous 2 months.

At sea level our base camp is enjoying a perfect summer-like day. Blue skies, light airs, sunshine everywhere. The Island is flaunting its wild spirit and basking in its own glory.

I am not required for the baiting work. This spare pilot has no machine to fly; I have simply become a spare person, a human in need of adventure.

I head up into the peaks that crowd up in a semicircle just a mile behind the camp.

Just a 600 metre climb turns the warm day into a sunny winter wonderland, an ice realm of baby glaciers and cool ice-pools decorated with flat slabs of glittering ice blocks. Waterfalls pierce dark tunnels through thick sheets of snow and surreal cold needle peaks jut up to rake the clear azure sky.

This amazing Island of South Georgia slaps reason with an impossible overlay of sensations. They make a mad sense all of their own when put together. Just like the peaceful madness of Spike Milligan's insane and zany humour.

It's time to climb back down from the high and airy ridge back to our base camp, basking in the sunshine at the waters edge.

"I must go down to the sea again,
To the lonely sea and the sky.
I left my shoes and socks there,
I wonder if they are dry?"


On a totally different note I'd like to remember an evening meal we all enjoyed recently at "The Restaurant At the End Of the World", shortly before the main party moved out to 'Purgatory Bay':

Freshly baked breadsticks
Hummus and fresh garlic mayonnaise dips

Sweetcorn risotto with Parmesan crisp

Mutton Putanesca
Polenta

Bread and Butter pudding
Fresh Trifle.

All served with one of the wildest views you can imagine. .................

[Senior Pilot]

Life should be like an healthy ECG trace; full of ups and downs.

So it's the first of May and no update since the 15th of April. What's going on?

We have been having a mad ratters spree on South Georgia but unlike the poor soldiers 'way down South' in Billy Braggs "Island of No Return", we are coming home.

Only not all together.

It's been a roller-coaster ride of unexpected directions for me. On 15th April I found out I was to start the exodus from the Island, sailing from King Edward Point on the 20th April.

The ratting task was not completed. The weather was falling into winter after 10 days of a mad 'Indian Summer' in South Georgia. The bait pods of the NW zone, that we slung ashore in February, were still untapped. With 3 expert Kiwi baiting pilots and only one zone to go, I was becoming an expensive 'spare' pilot. So a berth on the good ship 'Pharos' was decreed the logical place for me.

In one way it was a relief, as having a UK orientated Flight Safety Officer on a helicopter venture in South Georgia was like using an English trained, vegetarian food inspector as health advisor to a tropical open air meat market!

South Georgia is a remote roller-coaster of an island in topography, weather and emotions.

Can the remaining Team Rat complete the task set for this year? I've heard that, so far, due bad weather only 9 of the remaining 90 bait pods have been flown and spread. Just 4 days with 3 helicopters and 7 hours of flying would complete the task. They are in the hands of the Southern weather gods.

The aircraft have been unbelievably strong. The team are stronger still but the fickle weather sprites are the strongest and that's not including the 100 mph South Georgia katabatic winds!

An amazing amount was achieved in the short weather window in April. The 3 Kiwi pilots; Peter, Dave and Tony, each flew 50 hours, low-level, hands on in just 10 days. More hours that most utility helicopter pilots in the UK would fly in 3 months.

There is still time to finish the last zone- but will the Team be thrown a window of calm opportunity? It seems unlikely; even I had to face a wintery 24 hours of 80 mph+ winds and 45 ft waves during my 6 day crossing back to the Falkands.A different sort of roller-coaster ride!

I've left behind an island that grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and showed me what remote, raw nature is like.

I've also left behind an inspired selection of Mankinds best who are still there working, trying to unravel a little of Mankinds worst rodent pollution.

I couldn't help but feel a little like a rat myself; this time crawling up the anchor chain, reversing back to the ship. I wish the remaining team the best of luck.

To all Mad Ratters and Eco warriors and roller-coaster riders of life; adieu and bon voyage!

“Begin at the beginning," the King said, very gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

[Senior Pilot]

News from the Front
Just in:

"Just to advise you that we had 6 hrs of baiting weather today and sowed 28 pods on the NW Zone, which is now 50% completed. The Rosita FOB is now empty of bait, and the Right Whale Bay FOB has 18 pods of 40 originally placed there. We have just 51 pods left to sow, and then we can pack up and go home.

Assuming that snow doesn't bring us to a premature halt, we have 16 possible days in which to achieve the two full baiting days necessary to finish. There is no good weather forecast in the next few days, so this is likely to go down to the wire."

.....................

[Bertie Thruster]

Firstly: many thanks to Senior Pilot for copying my blog posts here while I was disinternetted.

Some snippets from Wonderland:

The Mad Ratters squeeze 3 Bolkows down a rabbit hole:

http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i97/nmhsu/rabbithole1_zpsc536b3e0.jpg

http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i97/nmhsu/rabbithole2_zps414bc782.jpg

Some teenage locals show a bit of interest in our arrival:

http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i97/nmhsu/P3220593_zpsfc667856.jpg

A love-struck young elephant seal takes fancy to a 2-man tent:

http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i97/nmhsu/P3200509_zpsc3ad4dbf.jpg

[Brilliant Stuff]

Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant!!!!!!!!!! What else is there to say.

[Bertie Thruster]

Wessex landing lamp, in deep preservation (not sure which airframe this is, YA or YF)


http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i97/nmhsu/P3201277_zps4351b1d6.jpg (http://s70.photobucket.com/user/nmhsu/media/P3201277_zps4351b1d6.jpg.html)

Storage location:

http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i97/nmhsu/P3201279_zps873f1981.jpg (http://s70.photobucket.com/user/nmhsu/media/P3201279_zps873f1981.jpg.html)

[Bertie Thruster]

Tail rotor shaft and floatation bag also available.

http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i97/nmhsu/20130405-20130405-IMG_7976_zps10f50db1.jpg

[Bertie Thruster]

This just in (Sunday 12th May) from the Mad Ratters:

"I'm pleased to advise you that we got a few hours of baiting weather today, and finished the last 17 pods of bait from Right Whale Bay. This now only leaves the 33 pods at Hope Valley (Elsehul) and the very western end of the island. We have completed 93% of the target baiting for the season and emptied 13 of the 14 bait depot sites.

The weather is not looking good for the next few days, but at present Thurs may offer the hope of light winds. The completion of the full 2013 target is tantalisingly close.

We hope to finish the island before the island finishes us!"

[Helimed24]

Ahhhhh G-TVAM, had many a cramped hour stuck in her! She was our air ambulance till July 2008. Sound and fitting place for an ex aa & Jackie Onnasis a/c.:D

[photex]

I blame a ride in TC with the late and great S Ford as having really started my addiction to helicopters.

Good to see her still flying :ok:

[griffothefog]

I have TC in my logbook as a yellow air ambulance in Dundee, Scotland 21/06/89.

Last entry as a red air ambulance in Exeter, Devon on 22/07/96 :ok:

Where the hell does the time go? :{

[Bertie Thruster]

G-BATC, G-TVAM and G-WAAS working in Right Whale Bay. Time-lapse video, 2min 25 sec long.

40 seconds of ship ops. Then a couple of minutes at the depot point, half a mile up the beach. (+ a 'standard' South Georgia squall at the 1 min 20 sec point.)

Apologies: 'Mad Ratter' soundtrack.

HOC9NTC13SY

[fadecdegraded]

Six Kiwis, including Wanaka helicopter pilot Peter Garden, are battling the elements in the Falkland Islands and South Georgia as they kill rats in an aerial poisoning operation. As Mark Price writes, they are also keeping a wary eye on the simmering tensions between Argentina and Britain over the disputed islands.

Six New Zealanders are experiencing the ongoing tensions between Britain and Argentina in the South Atlantic but have been instructed not to talk about that.

The six, members of `Team Rat', are on the island of South Georgia, a British overseas territory 2700km from the Argentine coast and one of the islands where there was fighting 31 years ago in the Falklands war.

They have been part of a 26-strong South Georgia Heritage Trust team attempting to eradicate rats from the island.

The project's chief pilot and flight operations manager Peter Garden, of Wanaka, responded by email this week to Otago Daily Times questions about the end of this year's rat poisoning.

Asked what he was able to say about the presence of the Argentine and British navies in the vicinity of South Georgia, Mr Garden wrote: ''At the moment the issue with the Argentinian presence close to the island is still rather tense and we are required not to send emails with details of ship movements.''

That leaves uncertainty over when the rat eradication team's support vessel, the British Antarctic Survey ship RRS Ernest Shackleton, will collect the 11 members who have not left.

The other New Zealand members of the team are helicopter pilots Tony Michelle, of Hanmer Springs, and Dave McLaughlin, of Ohakune, chief engineer Mark Paulin, of Auckland but resident in Britain, Keith Springer, of Christchurch, and Nick Torr, of Te Anau.

The Falklands war, which claimed 649 Argentine lives and 255 British lives, began with the invasion of South Georgia by Argentina in 1982.

In the following 10 weeks, British forces drove the Argentinians from South Georgia and the Falkland Islands.

However, earlier this year, Argentina's president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner urged Britain to end colonialism and was reported to be reacting to a British decision to name a large chunk of the Antarctic ''Queen Elizabeth Land''.

As well as the dispute over the islands, Britain and Argentina both lay claim to what is now Queen Elizabeth Land.

The Falkland Islands has a resident population of about 3000 but South Georgia normally has just a British scientific presence of about 30.

Mr Gordon said base camp for the rat eradication team, or Team Rat as it calls itself, was an old whaling station, but elsewhere on the island they lived in tent camps, coping with anything from gales, blizzards and -15degC temperatures to ''the odd relatively calm'' day with ''balmy'' temperatures of 10degC.

''We expected to experience cold conditions and all of the team members have been chosen for their ability to work in this type of weather.''

During one night last week while staying at the British Antarctic Survey base at King Edward Point, Team Rat members were roused at 5am by a tsunami warning after an earthquake off the South Sandwich Islands.

''This required us to climb up the hill behind the base in snow and -8degC, but fortunately not much wind, and wait for two hours till the all clear was given. No sign of any sea surge, though.''

Mr Garden said their biggest flying problem had been the wind - ''sudden unpredicted winds of 60 knots (110kmh) are not uncommon and moderate to severe turbulence is common''.

However, using three twin-engine Bolkow BO 105 helicopters, Team Rat has treated 580sq km - 65% of the rat habitat - as planned.

Team Rat hopes to complete the eradication in 2015.

The rats are Rattus Norvegicus (Norway or brown rats) that probably arrived with sealing parties in the early 19th century.

Mr Garden's next destination is Gough Island, off Cape Town, on the other side of the South Atlantic, where he will carry out feasibility work on a proposed mouse eradication.

- [email protected]

[Ian Corrigible]

BBC News article on the operation here (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23143430).

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/68534000/jpg/_68534287_helicopterlasheddowninsnowstorm_creditrolandgockel .jpg
The team encountered days of terrible weather, including blizzards and gale force winds

I/C

[500e]

Article in Independent today 4July regarding TeamRat