Visit of the E-Base at Bellinghausen

The ship navigated during the night in direction of Bellinghausen. The sea was agitated until morning come. With difficulty, I got out of bed to prepare myself. I was feeling sick again and had to leave the breakfast table to go and lie down. Happily, Audrey escorted me to our room because I was threatening to fall down. I took the seasickness pill Zeena, an Omani woman, gave me and it sent me to sleep almost immediately. I thus didn’t participate in the morning conferences.<o:p></o:p>

It was now lunchtime and I was feeling much better. The ship also arrived in calmer seas.<o:p></o:p>

The afternoon was going to consist of visiting the E-Base (Education Base) that Robert had built and that connected to electricity by renewable energy in 2008. The station isn’t far from the Russian, Chilean, Uruguayan, and other bases. The white tent we saw in a film the previous day had been dismantled because it is only lived in for 2 weeks a year by a man called Sky. He undertakes the necessary works and ensures the good maintenance of the wind turbines and solar powered equipment.<o:p></o:p>

After this small visit, two hikes were scheduled: one long one to go and see sea elephants; and a short one to go and see Russian tanks not far from the E-Base. Because of my health state, I opted for the short hike. We were a handful of people to go, with Jack, the Australian, as guide. <o:p></o:p>

We had a little bit of time off before dinner. Jason, one of the mountain guides, gave a lesson on knots to some of us, and I really liked it. I remember a few of them. After that, I have a mini meeting with Jonathan and Sarah on our database project.<o:p></o:p>

During dinner, we celebrated two birthdays, with cake, decorations and songs.<o:p></o:p>

The rest of the evening consisted in participating in project presentations given by participants. They were very instructive and I found a few more contacts  because there are two projects I’d like to implement in France (I can’t mention which for now). I took note of all the projects to start feeding our database.

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