IRATA work on Gough Island

[stevelucocq]

Not really tree related but I thought people might be interested to hear about the rope work I have been involved with.

 

I have just returned from 6 weeks work on Gough Island situated in the South Atlantic. The work consisted of working from rope and harness to survey and remove a non-native invasive plant called Sagina (commonly found between road side kerb stones in the UK). The work consisted of using IRATA rope access to make abseil drops on some of the 50 metre sea cliffs on the island. The plant as shown in the picture is very small but had a green colour that slightly stood out from the other vegetation on the cliffs.

 

The work anchors were mainly two metal scaffolding tubes hammered into the ground but on occasions we rigged off Phylica arborea (Island Tree) which is a fern bush found through out the island.

 

This work allowed us to get into some amazing places and we worked fairly closely to sooty albatrosses(See Picture below). Also there were Atlantic yellow nosed albatrosses and tristan albatrosses which were great to see. These birds are being studied by the RSPB as there numbers are in decline. There is evidence to show that part of the decline is due to the introduction of mice to the island. These introduced mice are causing the decline by feeding on the ground nesting chicks.

 

When I have been through the rest of the pictures I will post a few more.

 

The trip was a blur of adventure and challenges, the main challenge being spending 18 days in total on an icebreaker ship!

 

Steve

[Paul Barton]

Wow!! Nice one Steve. Nice gig to get!

[David Humphries]

Six weeks to just get shot of that one misely piece of Sagina in the finger shot !

 

That's a little over the top ain't it Steve?

 

 

 

 

 

Looks a great experience, what sytem did you mainly use?

 

Any trees on the island at all?

 

 

Looks to be a bleak place, found this interesting little link......

 

 

Gough Island, South Atlantic Ocean

 

Liked the story about the ship who dropped off a couple of guys on Tristan to settle, then went to Gough to pick up the seven guys who tried the same on Gough a year earlier

 

 

 

Thanks for posting up Steve, very interesting.

 

.

[stevelucocq]

Six weeks to just get shot of that one misely piece of Sagina in the finger shot !

 

Looks a great experience, what sytem did you mainly use?

 

Any trees on the island at all?

 

.

 

Ha, I had never noticed Sagina before, only to come back home and find it everwhere. I even found a patch on my front door step!

 

Thanks for the link, very interesting.

 

The place was unreal and was like something from Lord of the rings.

 

The main system we used was the standard IRATA rope access. This involves always working from two independent ropes. One is your working line for descending (Petzel Stop) or ascending (jumar and chest ascender). The other line is your safety back up (Petzel shunt). It does work well and some days the equipment got covered in mud and all continued to function well. I can see why such techniques are used in caving.

 

Tree wise there are only Phylica trees that are similar to a large bush. These trees are covered in bearded lichen, also there are many stunning bog ferns. I did visit the botanical gardens in Cape Town which was superb.

 

One of the highlights of the work was seeing the northern rock hopper penguins.

 

Thanks,

Steve

[scotspine1]

Great pics and story, thanks for posting.

[stevelucocq]

An interesting adventure - how do you get these jobs? adventurejobs.com is it? Love those albatross too; they look as if they're almost smiling!

 

The Sooty Albatrosses were amazing...they would make the sound of a screaming baby but only louder....this will stay with me for a long time!....also the Atlantic yellow nosed albatrosses where stunning (see picture below).

 

Getting involved with this sort of work involves a fair bit of luck. Things such as volunteering with wildlife groups, attending courses/talks and being available to leave at short notice all help.

[MOG]

very cool man, niceone

[DrewB]

as mog said. nice one.

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

Im sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo jelous.

[tommer9]

Exciting stuff mate. What a cool break from the norm!!