Part III: Antarctica and Academe - Scott Polar Research Institute

to determine abundance, salinity, phosphate and silicate were also determined in
the laboratory.
After "smokoe" coffee break, I walked up the back slope to Observation Bluff
and got my first view of Paal Harbour and Gourlay Peninsula, again looking so
familiar after all those years, and then around to Shallow Bay. There were many
marker posts for former experimental vegetation plots and surely most of them
were no longer required and could be removed? I also came across traces of
solifluxion experiments, which had involved white lines painted across the slope;
originally they were straight, but now showed wiggles – as planned - where they
crossed streamlines of the soil flow. At Shallow Bay the impression I had formed
of much less permanent ice and snow was confirmed by good views up to Snow
Hill. Also the snout of the Orwell Glacier was so much further back that it seemed
possible to walk along its ice front along a narrow beach - an impossibility in the
past.
My return path took me via Drying Point, where although five graves could
still be made out, only two crosses now stood; the others had been knocked over
by the elephant seals, which were there in fair numbers. After lunch I went out in
Desmarestia in a very choppy sea with steep-sided waves, with the divers - Ray
Townley-Malyon (Diving Officer), Peter Hardy and Mike Richardson (marine
biologists), who used the "green zotter" - a bizarrely named vacuum tube device -
to collect the bivalve lamellibranch Yoldia, while diving. The zotter was a long
metal tube connected to a compressed air cylinder and the air flow cleared the
substrate from around the molluscs - creating a huge cloud of bubbles reaching
the surface. After tea we resumed talk about the research programmes.
And so it went on. Next morning I went with Humphrey Smith (a
protozoologist) to the Gourlay Peninsula, climbing up the Stone Chute in one go.
It was quite a ‘flog’ - I'd forgotten how steep it was, but it was the best route to
Moraine Valley and then the "Khyber Pass" as it was now known, following the
contour. The last bit was over wet snow and heavy going because one sank in 6
inches or more at every step. Coronation Island was shrouded in the Föhn cloud
although Devil's Peak and the lower-lying parts were clear. There were many
stranded bergs to the south and east and I was glad to see the Macleod Glacier
again. Its cliffs line most of the southern coast of the island and seem to have
retreated considerably, for there was a beach exposed for most of its front that
was not there before. The central moraine, leading to Shagnasty Islet - a truly
descriptive name - also seemed to be larger. Giant petrels were sitting on the
glacier surface, taking the air.
We walked over to the Signy Island Reference Site (SIRS), where the terrestrial
biology experiments are concentrated. It was on a north-facing slope, very
irregular and broken, but the only suitable stand of mosses was in this area.
Humphrey took some temperature readings and collected moss cores. Then [we
walked on to the Gourlay Hut, about 6 ft 6 in square, with two bunks, tied down
against the gales with wire, making a very useful shelter. Humphrey had some
standard penguin counts to do and so I walked around the peninsula, starting
from the west.
The chinstrap penguins were still sitting on their eggs, but almost all the
Adélies now had chicks. It was so good to see them again, smell the musty smell
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