[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!
