As it's summer time, the base is full of people. This means the people going on the campaign (us) will be sleeping on the boat, only going ashore for lunch and dinner. This also means the cook on the base has to cater for almost 80 people. I have chosen this to excuse his deplorable cooking skills, although I am afraid he will cook no better for the 25 staying here this winter. This was a bit of a sore point, as the cook on the Astrolabe was absolutely fabulous.
However, the 'full of people' is almost entirely restricted to meal times, as, from outside, the base looks like it has recently been abandonned and recolonized by penguins. In my foolish, uninformed way, I had been afraid of not seeing any penguins. This proved to be rather a minor concern on the island. It is almost entirely covered in penguins. But these beasts are so quaint they will have a rightful post all to themselves.
The base is composed of a scatter of blue, yellow and orange buildings on the top of the island. These are connected by metal walkways, from about 50cm to a dozen meters off the ground. These walkways are not the flattest in the world, but they do have rough surfaces, as well as a strong handrail, which comes in mighty handy when the wind comes up.
Not having anything much to do untill the boat was unloaded and our containers found, we spent our time wandering around the base. It is amazing how ice, snow and rocks can form such diverse patterns!
The plain where the 'March of the Penguins' was filmed.
Most people work indoors (understandably), but you can often see the orange coats of the 'bird' people, or the orange of the zodiac, off getting samples.
And of course the helicopter and the dockers working full shifts in order to unload the boat as fast as possible. However fast they tried, it wasn't fast enough, and we had to wait out a first spell of bad weather at the base, before starting on the campaign.
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