Another fun landing was to the Russian Research Station of Bellinghausen. From here we walked to the Chilean base and then to the Chinese base. Thankfully we didn´t need to get our passports stamped between each. Claire and I are already worried about the precious real estate remaining in our passports. The previous evening we had passed another passenger vessel called The Fram. It looked really swanky. Later that night, however, they sent out a distress call stating that they had lost all power to both their engines. As we were the closest ship we turned around and started making provisions to take the 300 or so passengers onto our ship. The Ioffe is only a 100 passenger ship. Aargh!! It all came to nothing when they radioed back to say they had gotten their engines going again...but not before they had hit an iceberg side-on and smashed one of their primary lifeboats.
The Fram was at Bellinghausen when we arrived so as we made our landing the zodiac drivers brought us in close so we could get a good look at the damage (see opposite). That same ship had 2, unrelated, medical evacuations. As a result their itinerary was severely curtailed. It later transpired that the 25 year old female trainee doctor had been a little hasty in her decision to evacuate the 2 patients as it really wasn´t required. We later learned she got the sack and the passengers got a 50% discount on their trip. Ouch!!
The Ioffe, our ship, hit no icebergs, had no medi vacs & kept all lifeboats intact - tad boring compared with the Fram!
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The Russians erected this Orthodox style church at the top of the hill at their Bellinghausen Research Station. The church was delivered by the Vavilov (sister ship to the Ioffe). The Ioffe & the Vavilov are both Russian Research vessels.
Russia set up Bellinghausen station in 1968 on the nearly ice-free Fildes Peninsula at the island's southwestern tip. After a fuel tank farm was established the station became a major fuel depot for the Soviet Antarctic fishing fleet.
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