NAVY NEWS, MAY 2010

IT’S not unknown for members of the Navy News team to brand the

Falklands ‘the end of the earth’.

They’re not.

Nor is South Georgia, 900 miles away. No, you have to travel another 450 miles to the Southern Sandwich archipelago and the three islands in the Southern Thule group. They are the end of the earth. Capt Cook certainly thought so. That’s why he named them for the mythical land at the world’s end. They’re also the southernmost realm in what was once the British Empire. But being a bit ‘out of the way’, they

don’t get too many visitors. Indeed, it’s been nearly a decade since the White Ensign was last seen in these parts (the only witnesses being the local penguin populace – the islands are not inhabited by humans). So time for a return then. It fell to HMS York – Britain’s fastest destroyer (top speed 35+ kts) – to stretch her legs. Being a thirsty beast, she took tanker RFA Wave Ruler with her. Passage to South Georgia alone is challenging, even in benign conditions.

Reaching these islands means entering

the Antarctic Convergence Zone where the waters of the frozen continent meet (or converge) with warmer Atlantic waters. The result is quite a lot of fog, but also the appearance of a sizeable number of icebergs.

The ones which are two miles long and 150ft high are the easy ones to avoid (not least because they’re picked up on radar).

What you really have to be wary of are ‘bergy bits’ (which are, er, bits of bergs that have broken off) and ‘growlers’ (ditto, but smaller). The former are about the size of a bus, the latter the size of a car. You’re not going to spot these on

radar. No, you need the Mark 1 eyeball, a few hot wets and a bit of stamina. As darkness fell, York closed up on the bridge wings and foc’s’le.

The extra pairs of eyes – engineers,

communicators, chefs (sorry, logisticians (catering services (preparation))) all chipped in – proved invaluable as the Type 42 made a few short-notice alterations of course. Finally, in the small hours of March 26, Southern Thule appeared out of the mist and cloud, at once a stark yet beautiful sight.

All three islands which make up the

small group – Thule, Bellingshausen and Cook – have belonged to Britain for more than 200 years, since Capt Cook discovered them. They were the fi r

st slice of British

territory occupied during the Falklands confl ict – the Argentinians erected a weather station here in 1976 at Hewson Point...

...and they were the last slice of British soil (or rock and ice) to be liberated in the 1982 confl ict, a week after Stanley fell. The illegal weather station was subsequently destroyed by the RN.

Nearly three decades later, it was time to hoist the South Georgia fl ag over Southern Thule as a reminder (to the penguins at any rate) of their owners.

And York would have done so but for (a) the weather and (b) the local wildlife. A terrifi c swell running on to the

treacherously-rocky shore made a landing by sea boat hazardous. Tens of thousands of chinstrap penguins and thousands of elephant and leopard Seals covering the only fl at area on the island ruled out any landing by York’s Lynx.

Plan C then. Hoist the South Georgia flag and power past Southern Thule at full throttle.

NEXT stop Cape Disappointment (so named by Cook because he thought he’d found the frozen continent, but discovered South Georgia was merely an island) and a whistle-stop visit to to the breathtakingly beautiful Drygalski Fjord. Despite a bitter wind in excess of 50 knots funnelled down it, the glacier at the head of the fjord provided a most impressive backdrop for the photographers

on board.

Remaining clear ice at the fjord’s hea dash back out saw th around to anchor off eastern side of the is In spite of the name (the title comes from t the clifftops at dawn a however, king pengu seals, snowy sheathb large albatrosses wh beach and turquoise Completing a secon

replenishment of fu in front of snow-pea menacing icebergs, then headed into Cu unique picture of the the Nordenskyold Gla time a Wave-class s magnifi cent surround There followed th

near King Edward P Antarctic Survey he of the preserved for at Grytviken.

Using a combinatio and the BAS’s two propelled launches, who wished to got a days did so, touring foreboding, whaling machinery that stand of the bloody industr here.

In Grytviken’s pictu many of the ship’s few minutes to sit q friends and families back home. There was more c 600 yards further a Cove and the outpo where 63 people are legendary Antarctic Shackleton. Now we say contemplation... but the guardian of the evaded.

‘guarded’ by a par smelly) elephant sea ‘challenging and int

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