Protecting our planet’s interests – survey ship cleans up in icy paradise

Protecting our planet’s interests – survey ship cleans up in icy paradise
by rnn@codestorm.co.uk(Royal Navy News) via Royal Navy News
Pictures: LA(Phot) Keith Morgan NOSEY prepares for a nosey – diver AB Tom ‘Nosey’ Parker that is, preparing to enter the icy waters off South Georgia to ensure one of the world’s most important nature sites remains mostly unspoiled by man. Tom and his shipmates from the Navy’s Antarctic survey ship HMS Protector have spent several days cleaning the shores of the remote island – 700 miles from the Falklands – and surveying one of its natural wonders, the imposing Risting Glacier which spills into Drygalski Fjord towards the southern tip of the island. Although today the mountainous British territory is best known for its rich wildlife – birds and seals especially, while the waters off the island generate more than £4m from fishing – for half a century, South Georgia was an important whaling centre. Those stations closed in the mid-60s, but they – and especially the whalers which operated from them – continue to have an impact on the island’s environment. In the latter days of whaling at Leith – in the next huge natural harbour along from the South Georgian capital of Grytviken – several whalers sank in a snowstorm. It fell to Protector’s dive team to find the wrecks – and report on their condition, as the island’s government feared fuel might be leaking from the vessels into the pristine waters. It was considerably warmer and drier for Protector’s sailors working on the foreshore to collect the detritus washed up from wrecks – more than a tonne of flotsam and jetsam was picked up by the ship’s company and scientists from the British Antarctic Survey. The government also asked Protector to help remove empty fuel drums which, when full, had been distributed around the island by the Heritage Trust as part of a highly-ambitious programme to rid South Georgia of rodents. Despite worsening weather, the Protector team – led by her Executive Officer Cdr Richard Bird – managed to recover 22 used barrels. “We’re extremely pleased that we could play a significant part in this important – and world-leading – operation,” he said. “Despite worsening conditions, the team were able to remove the barrels causing the minimum amount of disruption to the hundreds of seals and penguins on the beach.” Of equally-vital importance to scientists is what is happening to the five-mile-long Risting glacier. Protector headed up Drygalski Fjord from where she carried out a radar survey of the slowly-moving ‘stream’ of ice, snow and rock – and found that the glacier had shrunk, information and data that is now being analysed to look into the wider effects that climate change is having in the island’s environment. Having been away from the UK since October 2013 – a proportion of the 50-plus crew are rotated every few weeks to sustain Protector for so long – the icebreaker is due to return to her new home port of Devonport, where the rest of the RN hydrographic and survey flotilla is based.

Navy News – Reporting from the Fleet