site.btaBulgarian Naval Research Vessel Reaches King George Island

The Bulgarian naval research vessel Sv. Sv. Kiril i Metodii (RSV 421) reached King George Island late on Thursday night and is riding at anchor close to Chile's Professor Julio Escudero Base. The last stage of the transfer of Bulgarian, Spanish, Colombian and Ecuadorian polar explorers will take place there.

On January 30, the vessel sailed from Livingston Island to Byers Peninsula and Greenwich Island to King George Island. On Livingston Island the ship took onboard two participants in the 33rd Bulgarian Antarctic expedition and three people from the Juan Carlos I Spanish Antarctic Station. One of the Spaniards took off at Camp Byers and one went onboard. RSV 421 took two scientists from Colombia and Ecuador at Ecuador's Pedro Vicente Maldonado Base on Greenwich Island. Three Bulgarians and one Spaniard will board the ship to go to Livingston Island, Commander Radko Muevski, the Commanding Officer of RSV 421, told BTA.

On Thursday, physicist Tsvetan Parov and geologist Assoc Prof Yordanka Donkova did fieldwork at the Bulgarian Base on Livingston Island. A group of scientists and logisticians worked on Perunika Glacier in eastern Livingston Island. The seismologist Asst Prof Gergana Georgieva worked on Balkan Glacier.

The construction of a water supply pipeline from the base to the new laboratory building is underway. A 45-metre section of the pipeline has been laid and put into operation. A concrete flooring has been laid in one of the storage rooms of the Bulgarian Antarctic Base.

The RSV 421 departed from Varna on its third Antarctic expedition on November 7, 2024, and arrived at Livingston Island on December 28. The St Kliment Ohridski Bulgarian Antarctic Base on Livingston Island opened for the new polar season on November 23, 2024.

BTA has a national press club on the vessel and at the Bulgarian Antarctic base. This is the third year in a row that BTA has sent a correspondent to Antarctica. This year's correspondent is Milena Ostrovska, who arrived at the base on January 17. Her reports can be accessed free in English at Bulgaria-Antarctica BTA's Log on BTA's website and can be used for free by all media with attribution to BTA.