Well what a day! For my Birthday Jim and Bernard our boatmen promised me a nice little jolly on the boats with the ITN news crew who are currently down here filming for the news this week. After leaving the Wharf at 10 o clock we only got about 200 metres into Ryder bay when two Finn Whales came up right next to the boat. Bernard said he organised it especially but think he may have been pulling my leg. Anyway after we dropped them off at Anchorage island to do some filming we went over to Lagoon island for a coffee. Whilst there one of the boats seemed to be grounded as we could here it scraping the stones in the water. As we approached we soon realised that it was the presence of a huge one ton elephant seal which had jumped onto the side of the boat which was making it bottom out. Cheeky little thing. Anyway we managed to shoo it off then Bernard fed it a few biscuits and we filmed it for a while.
In the afternoon we took the ITN crew and Mike Austin out on the boats to film some icebergs and some seals. As we floated past one iceberg a massive piece collapsed and for any of you watching the news tonight you would have seen exactly what happened. Myself and Jim were in another boat and were a little closer than the camera crew. In all the excitement i happened to get a little wet and unfortunately the camera is now unusable so apologies if there are no photos appearing until i can get it replaced.
To finish off the day i went up to Vals in order to rescue and fix a Skidoo before returning for dinner to find Cyril our French Chef had baked a Birthday cake and brought it out to me with candles burning and everyone on base singing Happy Birthday. Later i watched a film with a friend and then Dash 7 landed with Princess Anne on it who has been around the base today having a tour and speaking to some of the 2006 winterers.
'Perfect day in Antarctica'.
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