Fun for kids

One of the jobs down here is to liaise with various schools who are studying about Antarctica. The doctor and one of the Met observers has this particular honour this year and during the week the doctor was fielding some weather based questions, so he asked us three on the Meteorology team to provide some answers.

Here are my attempts:

Q. We have found out that it does not rain in Antarctica it only snows. Is that true? (Joshua). 
A. No, sometimes it rains cats and dogs (but hailing taxis hurts more).

Q. We also learnt that there are only two seasons. (Genesis)
A. That's right, there's only two seasons: salt and pepper.

Q. Is it true it is always light in summer? 
A. Generally speaking, yes, but it depends on where you are on the continent.

Q. Is it true that it is a desert? (Bethany) It is the coldest, windiest and driest place on earth? 
A. Yep, definitely a dessert, that's why it's white. We live on an ice-cream continent and there's chocolate underneath.

Q. What kind of force does the wind use? (Joshua again)  
A. Considering what we've been eating, I'd say the force of some pretty strong bowels.

Q. We love to learn about Antartctica. (Heta). We learnt that it has 90% of the world's ice. How did the snow get there? 
A. The elves brought it in using trucks pulled by giant snow dogs.

Q. Is it true it is the 5th largest continent? (Temayana) 
A. Yes

Q. How do you survive the wind? 
A. Put Mark B in his room.

Q. How cold is it in Antarctica? 
A. Cold enough to freeze a person stiff within 5min. I think the coldest recorded temp was -89.9ºC at Vostok station.

Q. How cold does it get at Casey Station? 
A. Around -35ºC in the depths of winter, which is why we cut a hole in the sea ice and go swimming.

Q. Is it true the hottest day was minus 10? 
A. Probably somewhere, but our hottest temp so far this season was about +5ºC. Although the radiant heat at ground level was about +19ºC (according to moss researcher Jess on one of her 24hr monitoring days).

Q. Has a penguin ever tried to attack you? 
A. Yes, but I was on Macquarie Island at the time. A king penguin saw me trying to steal one of its royal followers and it ran up to me squawking and beating me with its wing. Finally it pecked me on the nose and I let go. I felt very ashamed by being beaten up by a penguin and don't like to talk about it. Thanks for bringing that up - jerks.

Here's the game for those at home, which answers are true and which ones aren't?

Everything Else

So the main things going over the past couple of weeks has been the Search and Rescue (SAR) training week where a group of us were given extra training on how to get people out of trouble if they happen to go off track and end up in a rather poor position when out in the field or how to go about finding someone who has gone missing around station (maybe lost or hurt or simply don't want to be found). With the events from the previous post occuring the same week as the training, it really hit home just how remote we are and that if anything does go wrong in the deep field, the operation becomes more of a retrieval than a rescue.

 

There has been much music over the weeks as well. We had a great band and played a number of cover songs ranging from Creedence Clearwater Revival to Paul Kelly, The Beatles, Gerswhin, Simon and Garfunkel and a bit of 3 Doors Down too. The band was made up of 3 singers: Vicki, Marie and Beck; pianist and occasional singer Bec; Andy the drummer; on guitar was Zbynek (who has an incredible ability to play along with any song by ear) and mad Matt, who also sings; and me on clarinet, bass guitar and sometimes harmonica (plus singing out of tune when I felt like joining in). Sadly, a number of our members have already left, however we'll have Andy, Matt and me for the winter and a few others wanting to learn and play along.

I went for an over night ski with some of the summerers, hmm, about a week and a half ago, to the nearest hut to station, the Wilkes Hilton. This hut is located at the site of the old station in the area that was abandoned in the 1960's. The ski over was a helluva lot of fun, although it was only the fourth time I'd ever been cross country skiing... The first three were around the ski loop at station. We had pizza in the wood fired oven and went for an evening walk around the old buildings all to the backdrop of a rather beautiful sunset.

Last weekend there was a group of the winterers who were taken out for the final bit of field training before the last of the summerers leave us. We went to the hut furthest from station at Browning Peninsula. The drive over there was fairly good going until we were heading down hill and having to cross multiple melt streams. We were constanly stopping to find the best places to cross and learning to trust all that the Hagglunds could do. They're a wonderfully chunky piece of machinery these Haggs, they can go pretty much anywhere and are supposedly able to float too, but we haven't tested that particular theory. We went for an evening walk after setting up camp and were greeted by a spectacular up close and personal view of the Vanderford glacier. An awe inspiring sight. We then played with a few elephant seals - well, we wandered around and took photos while they lay there in their wallow. The walk the next day didn't go down too well with some of the others, they didn't seem to think that walking in high winds with a pack on the back is something that is all that enjoyable.

*This post added as bit of a fill

That's pretty much everything for the past few weeks, enjoy the photos and I'll be back on here sometime in the near or distant future.

Moved Back... for now

So it seems that there's a way of getting blogspot to work as I want it to - and my thanks to Dean for the tip. I'll continue posting here until things stop working again, basically I like the way blogspot handles photos better than wordpress. In the mean time, here a photo:

Pretty self explanatory -  Awesome beanie Bec!

Moved

THIS BLOG HAS BEEN MOVED. The proxy server that I am behind isn't allowing photos to be uploaded. The new blog is at: http://ppoad.wordpress.com/

Farewell, Flying Friends

On Wednesday 23/1/13, a Twin Otter with the callsign KBC of Kenn Borek Air (Canada) disappeared from radio contact when travelling from the South Pole to Terra Nova. The news was given to us the next day, sending a shockwave through the community as some here on station knew the three crew members very, very well. Over the next few days we continued receiving news of deteriorating weather conditions that hampered Search and Rescue (SAR) attempts until the afternoon on Saturday 26/1/13 when we were informed of a positive sighting of the aircraft near the top of Mount Elizabeth in the Queen Alexandra range.

As I'm sure you'll understand, the mood on station went quiet pretty quickly, but slowly people returned to the fold over the evening, which became a night of rememberance and celebration of lives lived fully. The station used a Canadian flag, signed our names (adding a couple of quotes the crew liked to live by) and sent it back to the families of the crew.

Fare thee well.

A Quickie

There's been so much going over the past couple of weeks that I haven't had the opportunity to stop and put things in this blog. So here goes a quick rundown and in no particular order:

• A flight to Woop Woop (the name of the skiway at Davis)
• Cruising through the icebergs around Casey
• Spending a night in a field hut
• Driving these tracked vehicles called Hagglunds around in the snow
• Taking quad bikes for a swim in the melt streams

Did I mention that we're involved in research program for NASA? It's designed around the psychology of living and working with people in a remote place for a long period of time. It'll probably help them with long term exploration missions and that sort of thing.

I've also done a bit of cross country skiing, joined the band and this week we're doing search and rescue (SAR) training. There'll be plenty more acronyms to come, because that's what working for the public service is all about.

The next few weeks after this one are looking just as busy on the work front - who knows when I'll get around to doing the next post??

Are we there yet?

How'd you manage to get us bogged without any melt stream around?

Somewhere between Casey and Davis with lots of crevasses

Hey hey we're the Monkeys

Robbos hut as viewed from the boats

A large melt stream (because that's what you expect to see in the Antarctic)

The plane! The plane!

Boating around bergs!

The Deceptively Flat Ocean

Mum and Liv seeing us off.

We've arrived, resupply is done, the old Winterers have been given the boot and the place is ours (insert evil grin here).

There were some very odd signs on the ship. Apparently the Bureau keeps whales in this drawer

The trip down was rather placid with only a few people being sick over the first couple of days out of Hobart and the swell only reaching 3m. Even then, that was only on the first couple of days that the people got sick. Although that being said, as we were leaving the mouth of the Derwent, we had to turn around for some repairs to a boiler used to help prevent certain fluids from freezing once we hit the sea ice. This was a great source of jokes for a few hours. Then a couple of days later we had to stop for a second time for the same problem - this time in a dead calm ocean - and the jokes started flying again.

Where'd the swell go?

Thylacine enjoying the view

Thylacine found some friends

We were visited by King Neptune, Lord of the Seas below 60º South where we drank of the sea, kissed a fish and had sludge poured over our heads. Though the sludge represnted all the crap humans tend to throw into the sea and was full of corn, tuna, bits of plastic and condoms, it didn't smell too bad and washed out of our hair easier than expected. Plus having this cold goop being poured over my head and down my back left left me laughing and wanting a shower. Those of us being inducted into the ways of the south were lucky to escape with having the water left on for us to shower in - or so the stories go...

Splat!

The first berg

More bergs

'Nother berg

Late night berg with birds all around it. Isn't the light pretty?

Breaking berg

Adelie and and Emperor penguin playing on the sea ice

We celebrated an early Christmas on the ship too as we were due to arrive on the real Christmas day. Santa was played by one of the ship's crew who has been sailing for about 40 or so years and his demeanour was suitably crass.

Icebergs in the sea ice

Arriving at Casey to the calmest waters I've ever seen

The arrival at Casey, however, was breathtaking. With the water being dead calm, the light from the rising sun (well, the sun hadn't truly set...) and the greeting from some Adelie penguins, how could anyone breath?

Casey wharf from the top of Reeve's Hill