All abo-ard!

This will be the final entry from Mawson Station.  We are almost certainly all going to be on the ship from this afternoon, and so we should only to make essential emails and phone calls from here on out. The most likely departure time is this evening, but it could be another day or so.

Resupply has been far busier than I expected, so sorry, no images to offer, but will put some words around it when I can.  I will draft up some closing entries while on board the ship, and upload them when home in Aus.

Bye for now,

Rolf & Peanut.

Guess who came to dinner!

I am more than a little bit excited, because there's a ship in the harbour! :-D
check out the web cams at:
http://www.antarctica.gov.au/webcams/mawson
and
http://www.antarctica.gov.au/webcams/aurora

 More words, and some of my own pics of tying up the West-arm lines tomorrow...

A sad day on the frozen continent.

It is sad to learn that Brazil lost two people in a fire at their base "Comandante Ferraz" yesterday.
Knowing how careful we have been all year to manage fire risks at Mawson, it is not difficult to see how a tragedy such as this might occur. 
We are thinking of the families and friends of the deceased.
R.

The Weather's parting comment: "I'm still Wild!"

Hi again.

I mentioned that I went for a walk on the 23rd, after working on the anemometer mast. The following pics will show just how lovely the day was...

View North-East

View South-West

such clear water...

And from our walk...

Dave, and the Station

West

David Range

Casey Range

Mt Henderson

And now, we have today's weather...

A head for heights!

Here's a pic of me checking the calibration of the wind vane for Mawson AWS yesterday.
Yes Mum, I'm wearing a harness, and tied on securely.  I'm only about 10m up. 
It was the most beautiful afternoon, with no wind, clear sky, sunshine, and a balmy -5-ish degrees, penguins playing and feeding in the water nearby, seals swimming past.

I went for a walk up to the plataeu with Dave, Julie, Clint and Josef later that evening, pics to follow tomorrow.

We are now in final steps of preparation for the resupply operations.  The Ship is waiting off the coast to the East for a major low pressure system to go through.  We are bracing for two days of blizzard, with winds of over 75 knots, and visibility down to probably only a couple of metres...

Last craft item completed.

The final little project had to be finished last night so I can pack the tools and left over materials today for RTA (Return to Aus).  It is a replica sunshine recorder, as a gift to Dave M for being such a great boss this year!  Probably one of my best efforts yet, if I do say so myself :-)  The spanner in the first pic is 100mm long, shown for scale.

Packed Already. Yes there is a first time for everything!

Well, almost, anyways.
I have a last craft item to make and my computer monitor is on loan to someone, but these items too will need to be all packed, consigned, and delivered to the stores building on Tuesday.  I will be living from the bag of things I can take on the ship, plus some clothing I will have to throw out at departure. 
This is made trickier by the knowledge that it may be about eight weeks after we get to Hobart before I see the stuff I consign as cargo.  And so for the time I'm looking for a new home, and probably for the motorbike road trip to QLD in April, I will only have the clothes and toys I can take with me as cabin baggage, plus whatever I have stashed at Mum & Dad's place (not much!).  All my other household goods are in deep storage, awaiting delvery to either my new home - wherever that will be - or accessible self-storage.

Less than two weeks until ship arrives, three weeks until planned departure from these shores, just under five weeks until arrival in Hobart.

Catch-up photos.

Greetings, patient ones.
Here are some pics to go with recent postings.

Bassler at RunDoodle Skiway.

Crepuscular Rays over Casey Range.

Our Plaque...

...takes its place on the wall in the Bar.

Action Packed!

Yesterday evening, I spotted our first whale of the season, in East Bay!  We think it was a Minke, possibly two, close to the ice edge nearest station.  They didn't hang around long, but it was a special moment.

Today, I went up to RumDoodle with the Skiway crew to receive a Bassler (modified DC-3) from Davis.  it dropped off the 5 newbies that are now to stay with us and return to Aus on the Aurora Australis with us.   Photos tomorrow; I'm too sleepy! 

Rolf

News Flash Update - with Pics: Horseshoe Harbour Blows Out!

Howdy viewers.

We've had a day of high winds, up to 50 knots with gusts to 65 knots, and when we can see through the blowing snow it does indeed look like the Harbour is mostly clear, and Kista Straight is open from end to end.  YAY!
Photos Below.  Also, see the webcam timelapse at <http://www.antarctica.gov.au/webcams/mawson>
It is a 2 day loop, so you'll need to be quick!

In other news, packing has begun.  I am almost clear of my spare room, as some new folks are expected on Monday, if the wind dies off enough for their flight across from Davis Station.


Rolf

Welcome to 2012.

[NB:  Photos will be inserted later, I wanted to get this written, and posted, while the mood took me!]

2012 will be an interesting year.
I hope all have had a great celebration of Christmas and New Year's Eve, and are safely recovering from the experience.
Since last post, we have had a very busy time here on station.

We held a 100th anniversary dinner in honour of the first explorers to reach the South Pole, and of Mawson's Expedition.  This was a dinner out on the snow in front of the Red Shed, with Scotty preparing a series of dishes that were based on the foods the explorers had.  Dave M lead us to the dinner in the preceding weeks with a series of fascinating Sitreps edited by him from the logs of Amundsen, Scott, and Mawson, from the corresponding days of November and December in 1911.   This dinner will be the subject of a future "retrospective" blog post.

I was lucky enough to get to travel to the hills, again with the Biologists and Tom, to do Snow Petrel Nest monitoring.  The plan had us checking nests at Mt Henderson, staying there for the night, then proceeding to RumDoodle for nest checks and the second night, before moving on to the David Range for nest checks around Fang Peak, then home.  The weather was brilliant, the scenery breathtaking.  Dinner the first night was had sitting in the sun on the veranda of Hendo Hut, looking North across the edge of the Plateau towards Station and out to sea. We woke on the morning of the second day to see a change in the sea-ice as viewed from the hut at Hendo as another slice had come adrift at the far edge.  Unfortunately, when we radioed into station from Rummie at the end of the second day's work, the deterioration in the sea ice in Horseshoe Harbour and Kista Straight meant we needed to return directly to Mawson.  This was to allow Susan and Julie to complete final packing on Thursday for a Friday Morning walk to Bechervaise Island.  The sea-ice in the harbour was so poor, and changing so fast, had we left it another day or two, they may have been stuck on station, and their major work for the summer would have been impossible.  They are now on the island, and will have up to 62 days there, unless the sea ice blows away and we can retrieve them by inflatable boat.

On the Thursday, we had a fire alarm in the Emergency Power House, just minutes before the planned cut-over from EPH to Main Power House after MPH maintenance.  It was a flow switch on a sprinkler pipe, a false alarm, but the turn out was pretty good;  personnel on site with the Fire Hagg, ready to go, situation assessed and all stood down in less than 9 minutes from the sounding of the alarm.

The following morning (Friday December 23rd) also had a fire drill, but this one was planned.  The intention was to turn out to the Diesos' workshop with the Fire Hagg, take a break for smoko, then use up some excess water cleaning down the heavy vehicles while getting practice at using the fire-hoses, pumps, hydrants, etc.  The excess water was due to the need to empty and clean out one of the main potable water tanks for annual maintenance, and it seemed sensible to use the water for a purpose rather than just dump it.
What actually happened was that after the smoko break, when we set up the suction and fire-fighting lines (hoses), one of the hoses from the hydrant to the vehicle blew a fitting.  When Ken shut the hydrant off, the pulse back up the pipes tripped a flow switch on a sprinkler circuit in the Operations building, so we had to abort our training exercise and respond to Ops, with the possibility of finding an actual incident.  Again, a very pleasing fast response from the crew (the other crew this time) and again happily just a false alarm.  We returned to the Workshop, and finished cleaning down the machinery, and called it a day.

We had each drawn a name from a hat some weeks earlier to set up a secret-Santa gift plan, and we were not to tell anyone who we were making/giving gift to, but many of us ended up getting involved in helping each other out.  The gifts were swapped on Sunday afternoon before the feast. Scotty cooked up a storm for Christmas morning, and Christmas Dinner was a spread such as I have rarely seen. 
I'm fairly certain I know who made the lovely chunky hand-knitted beanie I received (thanks, Lisa!) and Julie had no trouble guessing that I made the brass penguin she received, because I gave her the package just before she left station on the Friday morning.  It was a shame that she and Susan were not able to share the Christmas goings on with us, but the decision to go Friday proved to be correct.   We had gentle snow-fall at dinner on the day.  The ground was too warm for it to settle, but very special none-the-less.

On the Tuesday after  Christmas, I went back to Hendo Hut with Tim, Wilko and Clint for an overnight stay, and so they could get to climb Mt Hendo.  Id been up there with Tom some months earlier, and was keen to go back up in the hope that the weather would be better for photos across to the other ranges.  No such luck with the photos, but the wind was almost non existent.  The guys found the last stages rather challenging, with some slightly technical climbing required.  I was only confident because I had been there before, with Tom to guide me, so I completely understood their caution.  We took our time, and great care, and all made it safely to the top and back down again.  It snowed that evening, and we woke to a couple of inches of fresh snow on everything.  The top of the mountain was shrouded in cloud, so it was good that we climbed the day before.

And now we come to the New Year.
As I look at the coming year, I have many things to be thankful for.  I have a family and friends who have supported me in this adventure, as always, and who I am looking forward to spending a lot more time with in the years to come! This is assisted by the fact that I now have a job lined up, as an engineer/tech with the Bureau of Meteorology at their national Engineering Maintenance Support Centre, which is in Melbourne.  I still have a couple more months of this adventure to enjoy, and have some great new friends as well.

So roll on 2012.  I'm ready for you now!