Navigating The Seven Seas... In Poole Harbour

In a very illogical manner, welcome to my final training post about our first training course with the British Antarctic Survey.

I am writing this from my quarantine hotel room- we have just hit day 11 and with two rounds of negative Covid tests down and one more to go, the excitement is mounting. We are calculating exactly how much luggage each person will be brining onboard the James Clark Ross (JCR) and hoping that it will all fit into our transport that will shuttle us directly from our quarantine bubble to the JCR. We sure have a reward to look forward to, after what will have been 14 days without human interaction, we will be reunited with our team and social distancing will no longer be applicable. Thought, I'm sure that the boarding of 40 buzzing people onto a mini bus, about to finally set sail to Antarctica, will be no doubt thrilling! 

Following on from the theme of excitement, I would like to share with you our exhilarating power boat training that we embarked on in Poole Harbour. The Marine Team (which constitutes 4 members) and the wintering chef were raring to extend our RYA powerboat level II qualifications and step it up a notch to Antarctic standard. We were fortunate to have two superb instructors, Robin and Alyn, who tailored the course to meet our requirements. Although Robin and Alyn have not themselves been to Antarctica, they were very keen to learn about our roles on station and showed us navigational charts of the West Antarctic Peninsula. Adding to the anxious excitement, neither one of us five course members have ever driven boats in the challenging Antarctic waters. 

This training was our first team introduction and what a way to start! First, we were half starved of oxygen as we constantly had to keep had to keep a buff pulled over half of our faces as maintaining a 2 m social distance on a small boat is not always possible. While, we were confined to our limited space on the boat wading birds were happily prancing around in the adjacent mud flats, picking out clams in the shining sun. Split into two groups, we were given a thorough introduction into the Rigid Inflatable Boats (RIB) that we were due to drive, alongside familiarisation with the safety equipment, ie. flares, emergency position indicating radio beacons (EPIRB), very high frequency radios (VHF), etc. before reversing into the wind, controlling our speed and direction and pulling off from the jetty.

Holding on was pretty important when not driving the boat

Upon exiting and entering a harbour, there are often designated channels and as a navigator of the sea, it is crucial to remember that upon exiting the harbour, the red marker buoys should be kept on the starboard side of the RIB (right) and green buoys should be kept on the port side (left). Upon entry, the reverse is true and the red marker buoy will now be on the port side of the RIB and the green buoy will be on the starboard side.

The upstream arrow is  indicating the direction of the harbour. The schematic below shows a boat's position when entering a harbour

Despite having explained this, these rules will in fact not be applicable in Antarctica given that we will be one of the only boats moving around Ryder Bay (our de facto 'office', west of Rothera Research Station). After exiting the harbour, we joined the other RIB as we headed out towards the sea and simulated a failed engine whereby the rescue RIB towed the 'casualty' RIB. We learnt new techniques such as holding the boat in a fixed position (useful for loading and offloading crew and kit), practised man over board recovery, with a very realistic smiley-face float, and perfected our reversing skills. My favourite task was using our trusted float as a diver in the water under threat from a predator - by this point I should say the RIBs had names, Hunter was the predator and Harrier was the rescuer. This required slick agility and manoeuvrability from the driver in order to neatly position the boat between the diver (without slicing their head off) and the predator.

Importantly, I would like to state that although we are training with the view that top predators such as leopard seals and orcas could be a danger to us, because they do indeed dominate their environment and could become curious with us divers, we will be ensuring as much as possible to reduce these interactions. If we detect either predator during our pre-dive watch, we will not dive for a minimum of 4 hours following a positive sighting. 

The sea conditions did not hold out for day 2 of the course- this was excellent for the BAS team so that we could experience something closer to what we might expect in the Southern Ocean. The course had now been 'upgraded' to rough weather boat handling. Upon exiting the harbour, we passed a power boat level II course instructor who gave us the 'no go' signal and warned us not to leave the protected harbour.  He probably didn't realise our training requirements but either way, it was a challenge. With 50 mph winds and significantly high waves, we took it in turns to steer the boat in a steady trajectory and slice through the waves. It was important to approach the waves at such an angle to avoid being rolled. Playing with the throttle (essentially the power stick of the boat), we gave short bursts of power to get over the wave and quickly eased off to come back down off the wave. With what felt like rain slicing through our eyes (I thought I was going to loose my contacts), vision was restricted and it was crucial to remain focused. Our assignment was to locate a pre-defined coordinate that we had plotted on the charts in the classroom prior, by using reference points to guide us to our destination. Despite the bad conditions, we all succeeded in finding our destination, thanks to our strong team work.

Thoroughly soaked on the outside but dry on the inside- the beauty of fully waterproof suits!

To complete the action, we observed an RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institution) rescue upon our return. This was quite something as we saw volunteers rushing in on their bikes and clambering into action at top speed. We watched in awe as the lifeboat departed out to sea and wished them well in the sub-optimal weather conditions that we had just endured. What a way to end the training. Seeing people rush to a real emergency emphasised the importance and value of absorbing the vital skills we are taught during training courses... you always have to be prepared, whatever the weather.

Our reflection on the water surface

Photo credits to the artistic Pete Hill (boating officer)