O WNER REPOR T – BILL Y BUDD
We are back in the air again. It’s December 31st 2008, 24.00hrs Italian time, 23.00hrs English time. The wheels of our military aircraft leave the tarmac at Brize. The Italians have seen the New Year in but the English have another hour to go. We, on the other hand, are already fast asleep.
We are en route to Stanley in the Falkland Islands for the second time. But on this occasion our fi nal destination is South Georgia. We’ll be away for a month. It’s a serious trip this time and the sailing will be hard. T e crew is about as tough as it gets! T e dilemma we always have with all of our voyages is choosing whom to bring with us.
T is time it was a very diffi cult decision – who will actually want to endure ten days at sea? Five days there and fi ve (we hope) back through the world’s roughest and toughest waters? Our decision was expert mountaineers and climbers, of course. However these people had precious little seafaring experience and no experience of stormy waters. Okay, granted, our selection was a little haphazard, maybe more than a little. Our climbers, alpine guides and rangers from Valle d’Aosta, all of whom are used to living with Mont Blanc towering above them, may suff er from agoraphobia in the endless expanse of the ocean and they’ll certainty get seasick, but they were the only ones we felt would have a serious interest in the mountains of South Georgia.
T ey are also the only ones that would dream of scaling these mountains or at least trying to, conditions permitting. Plus they’re the only ones capable of assisting us in our much less ambitious mountain climbing forays too.
So basically, the people we have with us are the same ones that came to Chile with us last year where, we have to admit, they didn’t get much of a taste of rough seas. Also on board are our friends who came to the Antarctic.
So the crew consists of Matteo, an alpine guide and excellent climber; Luca, another alpine guide and ski instructor; Augusto, a ranger and fast skier; and our long-time travelling companions, Clive and Laila who are joined this time by Steve, a 35 year old New Zealander and seasoned yachtsman well used to sailing between New Zealand and the Ross Sea. Also aboard is Kali, a 28 year old Kiwi lady who came with us to the Arctic.
But there was still room for just one more. T e boat isn’t huge but it’s big enough to squeeze ten people aboard. So ten it should be – our tenth man is Tim Carr, probably the world’s leading expert on South Georgia as he and his wife spent ten years living there managing and curating the tiny Grytviken Museum. He sailed to South Georgia aboard his 9-metre engine- less wooden boat and so fell in love with the place he didn’t leave it for many years. In fact, he only decided to move to New Zealand two years ago but was so homesick for South Georgia that he became almost clinically depressed! His boat is now in the Maritime
Museum of Falmouth. Confi rmation as if it were needed of his greatness!
We arrive at Stanley as always, a little shattered aſt er the 18-hour fl ight. It’s cold, but warmer than back in Europe where it is deep mid-winter. Here it’s the height of summer. T e landscape around us is in fl ower, blossoming.
Before leaving Italy, we had organised a get together with a large group of friends who’ll all be in Stanley for a few days with their boats. T en they’ll all go their separate ways, some to the Antarctic, some to Sant’Elena, some to Africa. We meet up for dinner in the town’s only hotel/ restaurant with Jerome who’s leaving with some BBC fi lm crew for the Antarctic where they’ll be looking for killer whales to fi lm hunting seals. Also there is Eef, a great sailor and navigator, leaving for the North with her husband. T ey’ve just fi nished a stay of several years down south and may come to Greenland this summer where we’ll be with Billy Budd.
T ere are more than 20 of us around the table. A fantastic New Year’s Eve dinner – even if it is January 1st
already!
T e following day we cast off at 04.00hrs. We have 800 miles to cover and we have no idea what kind of weather we’ll encounter, though it doesn’t seem too bad, but we’re in a hurry and we’re eager to get going.
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