The Wanderer[Get the Latest full color copy (Dec 2004) from marion@sanap.org.za] |
Issue 28, July 2003Signs of SpringWhile some ferocious storms still target the island, icy winds still blow around its shoulders, and plenty of snow still lies on the ground, there are also some signs that spring is on its way. In protected areas, clumps of Marion’s ubiquitous cushion plant, Azorella, is growing green stars amongst its winter brown. Albie chicks are fatter than we ever believed possible, and their flight feathers are showing through. And the Gentoo penguin chicks are hatching. These little bottom-heavy characters, which look like animated fluffy toys, are to be seen at many beaches. And other birds and beasts, who have journeyed far away for the winter, will soon be returning. We human islanders eagerly await them. The editor |
Hallo Africa ThsipembeWhen it was said that, in August some people will be coming down one would have thought it is a dream. But at this moment one can see that it’s real, by the time you read this those people will be with us. I am personally taking this time to welcome them. Today I have experienced what to many of you it will just remain a dream. Imagine waking up in the morning and find that you have been trapped in your house, but not in a dangerous way. I wake up as usual early in the morning to check the attendance pattern of fur seals, but when I tried to open the door it was blocked. On my inspection through the window I found out that it is a snow which is blocking my way out. At the end I managed to get out, but how I did it is another story!! Good people watch the space to find out how I did it. Fhatuwani |
The end is near...AGAIN!Yes it is time for me to go home...again. Maybe this time I will be able to go home. The extra time I had to spend on the Island went past so fast that I didn’t even notice it is time to go home already. Like they say “Time flies when you’re having fun”. This past month started out on a high note with my 3rd birthday on Marion Island. The three Snow explorers (Shorty, Leonard, Shaun) went on a trip. We started with a round island but weather and nature had other plans with our trip. On the way over the top to Watertunnel we were diverted to Kildalkey hut and we had to spend two days in the hut because of heavy snow. It was one big experience to all of us. This winter had its bad weather days but I still say it was not as bad as the previous year…… or maybe I got use to the weather being on the Island for more than 15 months…hahaha. In about 25 days time I will be back home and it will be a very sad day for me to board the ship and go back home. After all I think one get use to living on the Islands and I will always be an Islander. With this I lay down my pen ……to be continued from my next Island. Baaaai, Ciao, 73’s and God Bless. Traveling Metkassie SHORTY |
10 things I hate about KatedraalA movie that I did not mind watching again was “10 things I hate about you”. The humour is absolutely great and the attitude of “Cat” Stratford is very inspiring. Now, there is this place on Marion that is very close to my heart. Prof. Chown explained it well previously: “Your relationship with Katedraal is like an untrustworthy friend.” Indeed. On the last day of July I went up to spend the night at the hut at Katedraal. But, snow has blown in underneath the door and has frozen solid hard. The door couldn’t open. I had to walk back to base in the dark. The most important aspect of the whole thing was Psalm 121. And on the lighter side of things, it inspired me to convert the poem read in “10 things I hate about you” to this version: I hate the way you whisper in my heart And the way you look so inviting I hate it that you are so high up I hate it when you are hidden in the mist I hate your temperatures that freeze the water in the kettle I hate the way you never leave my mind I hate you so much it makes me sick It even makes me rhyme I hate the way the wind rules your kingdom I hate it when the gas regulator froze up I hate it when your door can’t open with ice inside of you I hate it when I leave you to spend the night at base Even worse when I have no choice I hate it when I’m not there in the full moon light And miss the sunrise fire colour you in softly But mostly I hate the way I don’t hate you Not even close Not even a little bit Not even at all Erika |
How not to get bored at MarionYou can always go singing in the rain if you’re stupid enough, stare through the window to see how many snowflakes you can count in a minute or revert back to the more accepted method of passing the time by watching the same video for the third time which should not be a problem because last night you had to listen to the same song twenty times as dished up by our dj, the one and only DJ-Onesong. Good advice was taken from my old friend Evil Knievel at SANAE base who suggested that I bring along a multiple of coloured and scented soaps. That at least helps you not to get bored in the shower. Or you can alternate by taking a bath every other day and then you can also vary the songs you sing to go with the colour of the soap. One thing good about your morning cup of coffee. You can always have another one. Your choice and compilation of breakfast cereals will off course indicate your creative mood for the day and with a bit of ingenuity could keep you busy for half an hour or so. Ah ! Thank heaven for Skivvies and your daily work. That will sure help you over the boredom blues for a while. After work you for sure must take a nap after trying to read the article in the magazine you had yesterday backwards while lying with your head to the other side of the bed so you can later dream the Agulhas is on its way home as the room is rocking and rolling in the wind. At night you can phone home and it helps a lot if you can do your best to pick up a fight over the phone one day and try to resolve it the next that is a sure way to keep your mind occupied for a while. Get hold of a tape measure and a pen so that you can measure and record the circumference of your tummy before and after dinner. It will not only pass time but also give you something new to worry about. Using the bathroom scale every other day can alternate this. Boredom might eventually succeed in driving you out of base in the middle of a winter snowstorm for your first attempt at a Round Island Hike. Firstly you pick a guide who you least suspect will let you get lost on the island. Yes! Believe me you can very easily get lost and might even loose your life as a result. Now just for a little bit of extra fun you pack your rucksack with a Radio and tools which together with your sleeping bag and all the necessary refreshments and headache pills will give you a load of 30 Kg to weigh you down a bit so that you don’t perhaps out-walk the guide. Who has only done about 30 Round Island trips so far. Full of confidence and vitamin tablets you set of on the first leg of the trip via Repettos Hut to Cape Davis which have you a bit worried because the other day during summer you could not even reach Repettos itself without almost dying of exhaustion. After about an hour of sweating heavily in your gumboots and constantly falling up to the waist into maaiers, you stop to take a 5 minute break but after 3 minutes your toes turn into ice blocks and you decide to rather keep going than to succumb to hypothermia. Reaching Repettos hut after about 3 more gruelling hours, you wish that you could rather stay the night than to continue the hike for another one and a half hours to get to Cape Davis. Between Cape Davis and Mixed Pickle lies Azorellakop which definitely helps you get rid of a few liters of sweat while you stumble upward on snow covered rock and Blechnum into an Icy headwind which more than often blows you back a few paces. On the 3rd day you might be lucky enough to get good weather (Marion standards), with the sun breaking through for a few minutes at a time and then you see it. A gathering of feeding petrels in the sea close to the hut. Indicating that Orca has made a kill. Time to get cameras out to capture one of natures most beautiful mammals. The killer whale. Now off to Swartkops via Kampkoppie and Kaalkoppie with camera ready for capturing the two craters that erupted in1980. And then over green cotula plains where swarms of petrels roam at the bottom of the picturesque mountain range. Getting up the next day leave you feeling somewhat isolated knowing that you are on the far side of the Island but also with a bit of hope because you made it halfway around and there is still hope that you might get back to base some day and your cabin with electric heaters, cooked meals, T-bone steaks and entertainment facilities suddenly feels like home to you. Now for the longest trek due to the fact that Rooks cabin that was supposed to be halfway to Greyheaded was blown away a few years back. After 7 hours walk drenched by rain and hammering ice pellets you finally reach the hut for another night of Tinned food and drying your clothes over the gas stove while trying to kill the pain in your tired body with what is still left of the special medicine that you worked so hard carrying all the way around. Planning to head straight back to base on day 5 soon changes to rather aim for Kildalkey hut after studying the heavy snow on Karookop, a name that makes many an old Islander shiver. Step by step up the hill in snow and howling winds make you wonder once more whether you have not over estimated your hiking skills to the extent that you will never see friends or family again. Reaching for your water bottle only to find the contents frozen up in the minus 4 temperature as indicated by a hiking thermometer (with a wind-chill factor of –27 as later stated by the islands weather office). No rest breaks. If you stop you will most certainly die because you now must rely on your own internal heating system fuelled only by the previous night’s pasta meal and the chocolates still left in your pocket. Involuntarily you think of what will happen to you in the event of breaking a leg on the slippery surfaces. Six hours of this with kneecaps that refuses to take any more punishment gets you to Kildalkey, the last hut. Which leaves you with a feeling of closeness to home. Time to start celebrating with more medicine that was stowed away on a previous visit. This proves to be not such a great idea as you head back to base the following day in the drenching rain over the Soft Plume River, Kergeulen Rise, past Fred’s Hill, Tom, Dick and Harry and still many a maaier to wade into. And the moral of this story? No need to get bored on Marion - Take a hike. MacGyver Verveeld op Marion? In hierdie brief probeer die skrywer in gebroke engels verduidelik dat dit nie moontlik is om verveeld te raak op Marion nie. Indien jy nie braaf genoeg is om saam met n’ gesoute eilander in die winter sneeu op n staptoer om die eiland te gaan nie, kan jy jouself in die basis besig hou met n verskeidenheid van vermaaklikheid soos werk, skivis, gekleurde en gegeurde badsepies en ander vermaaklikheid soos videos, veerpyltjies en dies meer. So daar is dus geen rede om te vermoed dat Marioniete met tye verveeld is nie. Groete in die vrystaat. MacGyver |
Wandering Albatross chick ringing“Ok, guys, I’m going to go out to ring albatross chicks, anyone want to join?” Grumble, grumble…..I’ve heard those things puke something terrible is mumbled here … and very busy....mumble there! The whole team had heard about the potent projectiles of these staffordshire bullterrier sized wandering albatross chicks! In all fairness, many of the team were keen but really did have other work to do, so it was myself and Bantu that set off for the wandering albatross study colonies to go and fit metal rings on the legs of the chicks which by this time are starting to show some brown feathers and rapidly starting to lose that lovely, white, downy coat. Our aim: To ring all 220 chicks in the colonies with the minimum disturbance and of course the minimum mess! Choose almost any bird species’ chicks on the African mainland to ring and if they vomit it would really not be such a crisis, for two reasons! First, the chicks are usually not as large as a small sheep when you ring them and secondly, in the unlikely event that they do happen to vomit on you, you will hardly notice it! Well, not with these critters! Beautiful as they may be, these are birds to be reckoned with, they can cause some serious damage with that beak, and the vomit…well…. litres of oily, fishy liquid that is projected with force! This stuff doesn’t smell like a rose-garden and it remains in your clothes indefinitely. All the same a very gratifying experience, both for conservation of these lovely animals and personally, being able to handle these magnificent animals! How it is done is as follows: one birder calmly approaches the bird and puts the bird crook around the animals’ neck, as soon as the bird feels this it pulls back thus trapping itself in the crook. This birder then grabs the beak and lowers the animals’ head because if it does vomit the liquid runs out the beak and not down the windpipe. The other birder then approaches the bird from behind and pulls the one leg out behind the bird and slaps the ring on…..easy! In this way all the chicks are rung. The only unfortunate thing is that, sometimes, before the head of the bird is secured in the crook it already lets loose and it is here where one is necessitated to sidestep like a pro rugby player, to avoid being hit by the “missile”! Well, all I can say is…we are not pro rugby players! On a more serious note though, all care is taken to avoid causing regurgitation (by the birds of course) because that obviously results in the loss of a meal. Adults only feed chicks infrequently at this time of year and thus every meal is vital to the continued survival and ultimate fledging of the chicks. This is a useful example to illustrate that scientists/biologists/field-assistants working with any animal, should always take the utmost care to avoid any unnecessary disturbance, because even though we are doing these studies for scientific and ultimately conservation purposes, there is always the danger that the good intentions may become so disturbing as to have a negative influence on the animal/s of concern and thereby detract from the conservation importance of the work. Nico (birder) |
Marion the fairAt the end of another month and now only days away from construction. This is where we find ourselves. It has been a busy month and no less productive for it’s business. We started the month with a bang when Shorty had his birthday on the 1st of July. Since this was an occasion to be celebrated, we had to have a theme for the celebration. The theme was Sport. We had a wide variety of sportsmen present for the evening. The Springbok rugby team was represented by Nole, Kaiser Chiefs represented by Fhatu, the Olympic skiers by Leonard, the noble mountaineers by Greg. Nico put in an appearance as a boxer, Erika was a marathon runner and Bantu a less serious runner and then of course came the cyclists represented by me. Puff, better known as Mr Jungles was a golfer and Samantha a netball star. The birthday boy was dressed as a weight lifter. These sportsman came together to celebrate the birthday of Shorty who is celebrating his third on the Island. We can only wish the man luck for his trip to SANAE which is where he spends his next birthday. Also celebrating his birthday this month was Fhatu on 27 July. A happy birthday to the sealer. I was very privileged this month to go to Kildalkey Hut. The intention initially was to go around the Island but things turned sour on the day of departure when the snow was lying knee deep outside. It was obviously not a day for walking but Shorty, Leonard and I were not put off by this. We left with the intention of making for Watertunnel Hut. The weather turned on us and the walk was shortened to Kildalkey. The round the island was subsequently cancelled due to getting snowed in the following day. Yet again my attention is drawn to the powerful forces of nature working on Marion. The beauty and danger of nature has never been more apparent to me than it is here. To experience the beauty of the snow is one thing but to walk out and experience the danger of that beauty makes one realise what sheltered lives we truly live back in South Africa. We were privileged at the end of July to receive a visit from 3 Killer Whales or Orca. The killers approached from the South East and made a lazy turn in Transvaal cove. I realize this is not the last visit we will receive just as it is not the first but I am left breathless by the beauty of these powerful creatures every time that I see them. Yet again I am brought back to the fact that God has created all creatures and all of his creation and every work of his hands is so amazing and wonderful, it is beyond my means to describe anything adequately. Yet I have made an attempt. Marion the fair Marion oh Marion how fair art thee? Truly a place where man and beast are free. Marion oh Marion how beautiful the sky out here A place without fear The sound of the waves on the beach The sound of the seals’ guttural, growling speech. These sounds are yours and yours alone These places, which I wish, were my home. This place where there is nary a tree Yet there are many birds all free The sound of the Petrel As from flight it comes to settle. I love your mountains in snow, The way I feel about you no one can know Your rivers are pure and clean And into their waters to drink I can lean Your mires as nasty as they are And the black lava over there, far This is Marion Island the Fair A place to roam without a care. Marion a place where one would love to die The thought of leaving you makes me want to cry When the cold I dare to brave, Always there is rock or hut my life to save A minute’s rest for tired feet A beautiful Gazella or Tropicalis to meet Being here on this place Being away from Marion base The true mystery of life Place for the seals with little strife Wandering to do the count, Stepping over Van den Boogart Fount These memories I will take with me Nothing else dare I remove from thee? Thine rocks are precious if not expensive And your plants and animals all so alive. Bring no aliens with you For if you do, Invade this island they will And from shore to shore will they it fill The mice here are a pest But a small thing compared to the beauty of the rest The animals here are mighty and small But this I promise, I love them all Gentoo so nervous on the rock Then there are Rockies that do hop Maccis with your eyes so red And Kings as heavy as lead Those penguins are all here And at a death I feel compelled to shed a tear. The Wanderer and Squa Your performance is always bravura Oh pup Elephant Seal Are you so big because milk you can steal Oh Tropicalis pup where is your mom From the look of you a while she has been gone. Oh Gazella the brave Do I seem to you like a knave? You always attack or storm me I only want to go by and leave you free. Oh Marion the Fair with your snow and rain. After a long walk there is pain But tomorrow there is more I want to see Of your animals all so free. Marion oh Marion how fair art thee? Truly a place where man and beast are free. Marion oh Marion a place without fear As I have shown you here Marion oh Marion the Fair Do you realise how much for you I care? I want forever to live on you Oh yes it is true. Marion oh Marion in the big wild oceans blue How we all love and care for you. Enjoy the month. Shorty good bye to you, may God bless you on your trips to France and Antarctica. We will miss you. Shaun (Medic) J |
Interview for the month: “Shorty”Full name: Petrus Johannes Terblanche Age: 34 Family: Father, mother, brother, sister and myself, the youngest. Life before Marion: Boring. Weather Service and restaurants. Why Marion: The beauty of nature and the opportunity to work with extreme weather conditions. Your work on Marion: Weather Observer (Senior) Where to after Marion: Antarctica in December 2003 and after that “wherever my feet take me”. Hobbies: Photography, horse riding, nature walks, computers. Favourites: Animal/pets: Dogs and horses. Motorcar: Beetle and 4x4 Landrover. Food: Everything with no cheese, and Braaivleis Drink: Johnnie Walker whiskey and Koos Wye Voete Brandy. Colours: Blue and black. Book: Wilbur Smith Music: Everything with a beat. No jazz. No heavy metal. Movies: Action and comedy. Actor: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mel Gibson. Actress: The list is long but includes Sandra Bullock. Ultimate dream: To live on an island and to work with horses or to be a professional wildlife photographer. Biggest achievement: Winning a photo competition and getting a photo published. Sport: Rugby and cricket (watching), drinking and horse riding. Any advice: “Live everyday to the fullest and enjoy life.” Sam (Metkassie) |
Sayings and expressions from Marion Island
Greg |
Climate statistics for JulyThe winter month. Yes it was winter all right with snow and cold winds. The temps went well below ZERO. The lowest temp was –3.3 °C and with the wind-chill factor we are talking of ± -25°C. The Woolies and the hot drinks were working overtime. Some very strong winds and big splashing waves were recorded in the month. But winter is not over yet so my advice is to keep the hot stuff close by for some more cold days. Average pressure: 1005.9 hPa Highest pressure: 1032.0 hPa Lowest pressure: 978.6 hPa Average temperature: 4.0 C Highest temperature: 11.6 C Lowest temperature: -3.3 C Strongest wind: 34.5 m/s or 126 km/h Total amount of rain: 1 683 mm Total amount of sunshine: 64 hours 2.05 hours/day Marion Weather Wizard Office |
