By Livvie, Operations Assistant
A harem of female fur seals lounging in the shade from the winter sun. Just outside the historic coffee roasting shed at Grytviken station.
The new year welcomed in a different calendar, but our surroundings felt all the more familiar. As the season has gone on, friendships have developed, and we have all become a tight-knit community. Where I’m from in the northern hemisphere, the word January implies hunkering down, hibernation and short days. In South Georgia, January is the new July! The height of summer, 16-hour daylight, and the social calendar brimming with organised events and competitions, January is certainly the peak time of the social season with its hive of activity.
The JCB shed at King Edward Point Research base repurposed into a party room, decked out with a disco ball made from old CDs.
In the shop we’ve seen a busy month, we saw the welcoming of 18 ships, sold 170 king penguin plushies, and a grand total of a whopping 1769 magnets so far. While were not quite magnetic south, we’re sure getting there!
The Fram, one of our regular expedition ships, before landing in Grytviken.
Now we all know that what goes up, must come down, and the Christmas decorations in the church were no exception! The SGHT team set to work bundling together decorations and stashing them away for next year, taking the opportunity to give the church a bit of TLC by deep cleaning.
Our on-island operations manager, Will, taking down the Christmas garlands with skill and finesse.
The Operations Assistant (the OAs) role is a varied one, and the job requires you to be able to turn your hand to anything that is useful! This month we replaced our usual black uniform for workers overalls and got to work sanding and oiling the museum benches. It was a beautiful summers day and surprisingly the seals didn’t seem too bothered at the chaos and noise ensuing in the Museum garden, perhaps parenting has well and truly worn them out!
Rachel, one of the OAs sanding down our front benches, before coating in linseed oil.
But while the busy social events were taking place, the OAs were working away at their day-to-day tasks. Waste management being one, and cleaning another! The OAs must do a ‘waste run’ to King Edward Point to sort through and compact various waste, a personal favourite is using the glass imploder to break down glass bottles.
Livvie in her full PPE using the glass imploder to break down the leftover evidence of mulled wine season!
The team got to visit Nybrakka (pronounced nee-brakka in Norwegian) a large dorm accommodation building which housed many of the whalers. These days it is owned by the Government of South Georgia; we were lucky enough to get the opportunity to have the doors opened and enjoy a wander around. Rachel and Emily pointed out the paintings of moons and stars and the brightly coloured walls of the dorms, decorated by the Whalers. We also discovered old newspaper clippings which plastered the walls under the coats of paint, some dating back to the 1950s.
Rachel and Emily stood in a brightly painted dorm room in Nybrakka.
Some Old newspaper sheets beneath the layers of paint on the walls.
January also brought Chinstrap penguin joy to the base residents, twice in one month! Sighted at the beaches of KEP, these penguins are a rarity at Grytviken and are seen as a sign of good luck.
A chinstrap penguin, very cutely minding its own business.
This month saw the arrival of Art and Jack, who are part of our SGHT team that are doing a 3D scan of the Stromness managers villa. This is the Villa at which Shackleton, Worsely, and Crean first arrived at civilisation, after their traverse across South Georgia and a lengthy (and risky) navigation on the James Caird. It’s a remarkable building as far as history is concerned. Art and Jack will capture a digital twin of the building that can be explored, virtually, allowing people from all around the world to engage with this important part of history.
Art and Jack’s with the SGHT curatorial assistant Helen, on arrival at Grytviken.
Helen our curatorial assistant also made a very exciting trip to Stromness and Leith whaling station to go on a curatorial treasure hunt! With certain objects in mind and a hope to bring them back to museum collection at Grytviken, Helen set out on her collecting adventure and brought back many fascinating objects that will be accessioned into the museum collection and used for exciting new displays in the future.
Helen in full Tyvek suit, to protect her from asbestos at Stromness whaling station.
But enough of the work stuff, and back to the busy social calendar! We celebrated burns night, a Scottish tradition which sees island residents read hand-written speeches, standing before long tables decorated with plates of haggis, neeps and tatties, and of course – a healthy dram of whisky!
Base resident, Adam, delivering a section of the ‘address to the haggis’ Robert Burns poem.
Finally, the KEP Olympics saw the islands residents dressed to impress. The base formed teams with individual flags and themes. The winning team, Licence to Krill, deserves a huge round of applause and a special mention. This has absolutely nothing to with the fact that the person writing this blog was on the winning team and would like everyone to know about it.
Livvie and her team ‘krilling’ the competition with her Olympics team.
All that’s left to say is thank you all for a brilliant start to the new year, we’re looking forward to what the 2026 season will bring!