Walk to Gardiner Island

Ice axe in hand, this was taken about 8:30pm at night standing on the sea ice in front of the Aurora Australis, just before our walk over to Gardiner Island.

This little guy was our tour guide for the walk.  He was very eager to meet us and get his photo taken.  He loved all the attention and ended up calling his mates over as well.

\

Yes that is suncream I am wearing.  Temp was around -3 and very little wind....beautiful.

Gardiner Island is home to about 20,000 Adelie Penguins.  Amazingly, they are very sure footed climbing up and down the rocks.  The island was very noisy, and very smelly.  No matter how many times I see them, they always make me laugh when I see them walk or slide on their bellies across the ice.

This iceberg is on the south side of the island and the photo taken around 10:00pm.  As you can see, the sun was just on the horizon and the elevation where it pretty much stays all night.  It just seems to move around the horizont till it gets to the other side and then rises again at about 2:00am!.  Even though the sea ice is about 1.5m thick some of these icebergs stil manage to "drift" around the bay.

Stating the obvious.  Belive it or not, this is a sign the Division use just outside the ship, to remind you that you are working/walking in an icy area.  OH&S at it's best!

The first week on station has truly flown by.   There has been so much happening.  It has mostly involved unloading the ship, including around 800,000 litres of fuel, 200,000 litres of water and plenty of cargo and supplies to last some of the summer before the next resupply.

There are now 6 expeditioners "deployed" to the Amery Ice shelf which is around 300km to the west.  They are a team of 5 scientists and a mechanic using hot water drilling equipment, drilling through the ice to the seabed.  From memory I think the ice is around 800m thick!  They also take ice samples to analyse later.  Every night at 1830 I talk to these guys and they transmit a "sked"  (scheduled sit rep report) to me over HF radio.  This is to make sure they are in good health, let us know if they need anything, give us a weather observation and let us know what they are up to. We also give them a met forecast for the next couple of days.

Next week I will take a few photos of the station and the building I work out of.

Photos at last!

This was day of departure (30th Oct 2009) at the Wharf in Hobart. The ship is over 8000 tons and capable of breaking up to 2 m of ice!  Very comfortable compared to all the Navy ships I have been on. I can actually stand up straight and walk around with out being hunched over.  My bed is fairly comfortable and the food is awesome. It is a challenge to make it to Antarctica without putting any weight on while on this ship!!!

Departing from Hobart.  Unfortunately family members were not allowed on the wharf to wave goodbye as was the case previous years.

This is the ship in amongst "pan cake" ice.  It was the first big lot of ice that I had seen. Ironically it was a Sunday and a day I normally make pancakes for my two children.  It also ended the seasickness I was experiencing as the ice flattens out the swell. 

This was one of the more interesting  icebergs to be seen along the way.  I would say this one was about 6 times bigger than the ship. Each one of them has unique shape and sometimes colour.  There are some that have very rich blue, some bright white and others almost green tinge.

Hard to believe with the size of some of them, you are only seeing about 20% of  the iceberg!

This is a hard day at the office on the bridge of the Aurora Australis. To the left you can see the bench where the Met guys work and record their observations.  In front of me is where one guy does about 7 jobs on a Royal Australian Navy Ship's Bridge and about 20 on a US Navy Ship's Bridge.

Unfortunately the choppers were not able to fly much due to the weather.  As you can see in the picture, when the sun was out the glare was blinding.

Above is the Ship's track of over 5300kms travelled.  You can just make out a few little detours where the ship was trying to avoid either large areas with snow on top of the ice or just too much ice.

Stepping off the ship for the first time in 3 weeks.  Hard to believe in about a month's time this will be all water.  The walk across took almost an hour.  By the time I got to the shore, I was fairly hot except for my left cheek and nose which were exposed to the wind. Temp was -2 with wind chill about -10. A fairly mild day.

Looking at the ship in the ice reminded me of the scene out of Pirates of the Carribean, where the ship was stuck in the middle of the desert.

The 4km walk to the station across the ice. Along the path we had a greeting party of a few penguins. It was almost as if they were coming over to welcome us to Antarctica.

Above is Davis Station and my home for the next 4 and a bit months. This is looking from about a 1km away.

This is looking from Davis back to the ship. The ship is barely able to me made out in the centre of the horizon. The weather was superb. It didn't last long though. This morning we had blizzards conditions which put a stop to the resupply and refueling operations. The wind was blowing over 50 knots. This can sometimes break up and move the ice and potentially dangerous to operate on. Hence the reason we were confined to the ship today.

I apologise for the poor resolution of the pictures. The network connection is painfully slow and uploading these photos took 3 hours! I will have plenty more to follow.

Arrived at Davis!

One day short of 3 weeks travelling to Davis! 3 of those days doing only 3nm crunching the ice just outside Davis. The ship is still about 2nm from the Station, close enough to do the resupply though. I walked from the ship to the station across the ice this afternoon for my first time on the Antarctic Continent! Weather was beautiful but soon turned ordinary very quickly about an hour later.

I mostly enjoyed my time on the ship. The first couple of days were beautiful, but the weather and seas got gradually worse over the next week. I was pretty much bed ridden for 48 hours and managed to sleep most of that time, awaking only for meals. Yes, amazingly I did not lose my appetite! After taking some Avomine (sea sickness tablets) I gradually got used to the 6-8m seas. Once amongst the ice, conditions were fantastic.

Progress was a lot slower than I expected with the ship backtracking a few times to look for a better route amongst the ice. Occasionally we found areas that had too much snow on top of the ice, which slows the ship considerably. The weather wasn't that suitable for the helicopters to fly until just the last couple of days. This gave me the chance to do my job for the very first time.

The meals on the ship were awesome, with many people probably putting on a few pounds! There was also various entertainment to keep all occupied and stop the boredom. Amazingly most of the way there was also plenty of wildlife to see. This included birdlife including Petrels and Albatrosses. It is truly amazing how far these birds fly! There were also whales (minkey and orcas), seals (Ross, Leopards..including a female which had just given birth to a pup!!) and plenty of penguins (Adeile and Emperors etc.)

I think all the new expeditioners are happy to be finally on the station and doing some work. After a quick tour/induction of the station this afernoon, I was thrown in the deep end and shown the ropes of the job.

By my next post I will finally be able to post some long awaited photos of the trip so far.