Newcombe Bay is all water again after the Blizz blew out all he sea ice.

Sunrise 11:40am Sunday 25th June

 

Good food, good friends, a great night.

 

All desserts made by me. Not bad for the packet queen hey? ;o]

The face says it all!

 

View from the spa. Not a bad way to spend an hour.

We eat well down here!

 

The Doc takes a flying leap in.

 

Robbie gets ready to jump - floaties and all!

 

Constructing the pool

 

A beautiful day for mid Winter

 

June 18 - 25. MidWinter Solstice

This week saw us celebrating Midwinter: The winter Solstice.
Down here in Antarctica this is a very big deal and a traditional celebration. It marks the end of the very long dark nights and the start of the sun staying out longer and longer each day.
I personally am looking forward to the return of long days. I was quite fond of 24/7 sunlight I have to admit. These very short dark days of only 3 hours daylight are becoming a little hard to take for me. I am tired of them. Bring on the sunshine I say!

The day started with Robbie and I in the cooking preparing Brunch. Then it was off to the wharf for the traditional swim in the sea. Most of the guys partook – this little black duck preferred to take happy snaps. I didn’t feel the need to subject myself to a 30 second torturous dip in 1 degree water thanks very much. The look of shock on everyone’s face as they hit the water was enough to keep me on terra firma.
After the dip we headed back up to the Red Shed. I joined some of the fellows in the spa and sat back with the 10 million dollar view spread before me. Very relaxing indeed. After the boys thawed out we set up the wallow for dinner.

At 3:30 Canapés were served and the pressies were opened. I received a beautiful scene made of wood, aluminium and copper. Joe – our plumber – had gone to a huge effort to make my pressie and I was delighted in it. It sits proudly on my bookshelf in my room and already has a place on my wall at home all picked out.

Dinner was served and it was an amazing feast. Robbie is the most brilliant chef and we all well and truly over indulged. After dinner a show was put on with lots of people doing a variety of things to keep us all entertained and amused. All in all it was a lovely day. I confess to being very tried after being in the kitchen every day for days on end and almost fell asleep at the bar by midnight.

We had been extremely lucky with the weather. The previous day it was hideous and the day after we had a Blizz, but Midwinter itself was lovely. The Blizz the next day was a God send as it gave us a bit of a chance to rest. No one could venture outside in the winds so it was a bit of a day off. This is a rare occurrence at Casey. We only have Sundays off and we don’t get any public holidays, so you do tend to get pretty run down after a while. I am very much looking forward to my 2 months break when I get home I have to say. I will be thoroughly exhausted by the time the big orange taxi comes to collect us in January.

Tomorrow I am starting a 12 week fitness program. In recent times it has been extremely hard to find the motivation to exercise and as a result I can feel my muscle tone disappearing and the flab retuning. It is time to hit the gym and the cardio room with a vengeance: get back into shape and lose all my fat. In 12 weeks I am determined to get my size 10 jeans back on that I haven’t worn for about 10 years. So watch this spot for a photo of those in 12 weeks time. ;o]

T x

Two penguins have an early morning dip. brrrr!

 

The Beauty of Antarctica. An emporer watches the same sunrise at Jacks'

Then the sun rises in the windows

 

The light begins to show

 

Same Blue Berg 30th April - no sea ice had formed then.

 

Grounded Blue Berg in Sparkes Bay.

 

June 12 - 18

Hey All,
Well another week has flown by.
We had a Blizz for 3 days and I was a bit worried by Friday. My name was down on the board to go out for a Quad trip to drill the Sea Ice to Browning and I was looking forward to it.
As it turned out the Blizz was courteous enough to blow itself out in the wee small hours of Saturday morning so we headed off at about 10am – before the sun rose. As always when a Blizz is around, the temperature rises, so it was in a lovely balmy -12 degrees that we set off on our quads for Browning.

The trip down was slow, surface definition was pretty well non existent due to the full overcast skies. When no shadow is cast it is very hard to make out hills, bumps, holes, etc in the endless white of the snow. The snow was also quite deep, having fallen fairly constantly all week before the Blizz. My agenda wasn’t really sea ice drilling, it was to visit my beautiful grounded Blue Berg in Sparkes Bay. Ever since my last trip to Robbo’s when I first saw it – in open water at that stage – I have wanted to be able to get right up next to it. It is so beautiful. I was so happy that Sparkes Bay Sea Ice had not blown out in the Blizz. It seems pretty well locked in by the surrounding Islands, which is a good thing. So I was able to ride up to this massive and amazing blue monster of a Berg.
Once again, not so long ago I was flying through these open water in a boat. Now I am flying along the same stretch of water on 1 metre thick sea ice on a quad. It still blows me away that we can do this!
The five of us all had a ball. It was a great day. These are the days to live for down here. When you can leave station and just take off. Off into the wilderness with a few mates, out and about to see and do all that you can fit into 4 hours of daylight. Magic!

All day today – Sunday – I have been in the kitchen with Robbie cooking for mid winter. We are going to have enough food to feed about 100 damn people! But this is the day the chef can really show his skills and go all out. And Robbie is pulling out all the stops. We will cook for the next two days straight, ready for mid winter on Wednesday.

The day has been glorious – though very cold. At one stage I looked at the temp and it was -26. Glad to be indoors today, just looking at the beautiful view over the Bay from the kitchen. I did race out and take some happy snaps when it was particularly colorful and gorgeous today. Andrew toodled off to Jack's Donga today with some of the boys and had a great day. They were lucky enough to see an Emperor penguin and a seal. The light was fabulous for photos as well, so all in all another great weekend at casey.

Anyway, that is all for the week.
Have a good one.

T x

And another one to finish off.

 

A cute photo for the Blog

 

It is 4pm and the full moon is well and truly up.

Solar Pillar

 

This was taken at about 2pm - it isnt terribly bright during the day at the moment. But it is still beautiful.

 

June 5 - 11

Hey All,
Well, I finally got to go out on the sea ice on the quads this weekend. It was a hoot. We have had a lot of snow this week and I got bogged 3 times before I even left station limits – very frustrating! Once we were out on the sea ice there was still more snow and the only way to avoid being bogged was to keep the speed up. It was an amazing feeling flying across the top of the sea ice on the way back to station heading towards the wharf and being on a quad. I had a great day. The last time I took that same path I was in an IRB on the boating team ferrying scientists back and forth across the water.
Andrew and I were able to head off station together, which was a lot of fun. As we are both the Comms kids we are generally not allowed off station together, so we have never been anywhere that isn’t work related together before. Our deputy station leader kindly looked after radio Comms for the arvo and because Andrew and I were staying within 30 minutes return journey of the station we were able to head out for a trip together. So 4 of us headed off once the sun came up – at 11am and were back just after the sun set at about 3:30pm. A few hours were all I needed to recharge the batteries and get rid of the cabin fever that had been steadily growing in the last few weeks.

This week I also discovered the spa and sauna. Heaven! Being cooped up with the same 18 other people day after day for all this time can sometimes get on my nerves. Every now and then I just need to completely disappear so I don’t actually kill someone. That is what happened this week. I think I was just a little fed up and grumpy and had a bit of cabin fever from long days with no break. I was getting tired and grumpy so I took myself out to the spa and sauna and stayed there for about two hours with my Mp3 player. I did the same thing Friday night as well. I think it may become a regular habit of mine now to go out and just spend time going from the spa to the sauna and back again for a few hours once or twice a week. I had good music for company and just disconnected from everything for a while. It is nice.

On Thursday I spent the day cooking in the kitchen with Robbie for the Mid-Winter celebrations. I got my arse kicked a few times for stuffing up but that is OK because I am starting to cook some pretty advanced things now and it also means Robbie is seriously teaching me in the kitchen. I am now making things from scratch and some of them are quite complicated. So that is all good. This morning I was wide awake at 6:30am so headed out to the kitchen and started cooking. I made two fruit cakes for the boys and then a breakfast for myself of fluffy scrambled eggs with quail and roast potato. Even my taste is becoming rather fancy these days. For dinner tonight I have made some chicken and camembert with white wine pasta sauce that I am having over ravioli. Not bad for the packet queen who’s motto has always been “Why make when you can buy?” ;o]

What else has happened this week? More work down at the IPS hut and a trip out to the receiver and transmitter sites. The Blizz from last weekend lasted a few more days and the temperature hit -32 degrees during the week. Now that was a cold old day I can tell you! Oh and a brilliant solar pillar that had sun dogs at the same time and one of the sun dogs also had a solar pillar. That was a pretty spectacular site I have to say.

But apart from that life at Casey station just toodles along. The days are pretty short now. The sun rises at about 11:00am and sets at about 3:30pm so it is dark for most of the time. I am finding it difficult to motivate myself to train at the moment. I am only running 40 minutes each day and doing yoga once a week now. But I am not too concerned as I am not putting on any weight and I know once the sun comes back I will be well and truly motivated to hit the gym hard once more.

So that is it from Tracey in Casey for this week.

Till next week – have a good one.

T x

Nowhere else in the world could you see such an amazing site.

Monster Bergs surrounded with mist.

 

Pretty awesome to witness.