My Lead Lighting Worktable. Glass side panel in progress.

 

Our VERY messy workshop at the moment. Work is bedlam right now.

 

This is our Winter Crew

 

We had a spit for dinner and Friday drinks in the Dieso workshop for the Hanger Rat Finals.

John - my next door neighbour - and his Bi-Plane. This was a ripper!

 

Brian with his two engine, double wing, duel carriage Rat.

 

July 24 - 30

G’day All
How is everyone this week? All good I hope.

So, what I have I been up to?

Another big week at work. We are making a new console for one of the Haggs from scratch and have literally had to redesign the whole thing. The workshop looks like a bomb has hit it! There are modified radios on the bench, a Radar head on the floor, bits and pieces of wire and circuits spread all over the place. I HATE working in a mess, but at the moment it can’t be helped as this is a pretty huge job and requires quite a bit of work. With a bit of luck all will be completed next week and the workshop will be tidy and normal again. ;o]

So what else? Another week, another Blizzard. They seem to be more than a regular occurrence at the moment. Not a week goes by where we haven’t had a Blizzard recently. This week we have had two. On Wednesday winds hit 96Knots. As I type this we have 80 knot winds outside and blowing snow. Visibility is about 1 meter. Not a very pleasant Sunday at all. But a good day to get stuck into my Lead-Lighting. I am now making two window panels for beside the front door of my house. I am yet to make the wooden frame for my mirror. I have been too busy to get down to the chippies workshop and put in the hours required. I will get there soon though I hope. Maybe next Sunday.


Friday night saw the final in our series of Hanger Rat competitions. My little plane did 3 fabulous flights. As I was preparing for a ground take off I wound the motor one turn too far. Doh!!! The body just disintegrated itself. I was sooo disappointed in that. A bottle of Sparkling Shiraz and several home brew ginger beers consumed soon saw me over that disappointment: but seriously hurt me the next morning I have to say!

Saturday night it was time for Robbie to have a Saturday night off so I cooked for the evening. Roast Lamb, Potato Bake, Cauliflower Gratin, Peas and home made gravy, followed by Bread and Butter pudding with ice cream for desert. Well received by all and pretty good, even if I do say so myself. It was nice to have a simple, home style cooked meal.

So there you have it, another week at Casey.

Till next week, have a good one.

Trace :o]

My made in one evening from table cloths Flower Power costume.

 

Andrew and his wining flight of the evening.

 

First Launch of the night.

 

My Hanger Rat. Pretty isn't it? ;o]

 

Jack's hut

 

Jack's

 

Singing a Sonny and Cher song

 

Flower children

 

17 - 23rd July

Hi All,
This week has been a big week of working down in the Dieso’s Hanger. Andrew and I have had to move all Comms equipment out of one Hagg, which is being sent back to Austrlaia at the end of the season and refit a new Hagg. This meant moving the HF Radio, the Radar, GPS Unit, Headsets and VHF Radio. It was a big job and a dirty one. Scrambling around inside and out the Hagg. On the roof. In the cabin. Running wires, drilling holes in the wall, fitting new mounting brackets. I was filthy for days, covered in grease and dirt, fingernails black. ICK! But it wasn’t too bad a job. It was actually a bit of fun and kind of new for me. I haven’t done a lot of install work, let alone remove and reinstall a full radar system in a vehicle before. So once again, new jobs, new work. It is one of the good things about being down here. So much different work to do and lots of variety.

On Wednesday I was fortunate enough to be able to take off for a visit to Jack’s for the day. I have never been there before so it was nice to get out and about to yet another new location. It is a really nice spot and I think I will spend a bit of time up there as the weather gets warmer.

Then we had the second week of Time Trial’s for the Hanger Ratz. I had spent a fair bit of time on my rat fixing it and making it pretty. It wont win the longest flight, but it might win the prettiest. It now looks very special indeed! Andrew had an amazing flight of 48 seconds. So he is the leader ahead of Cliff who managed a very close 45 seconds.
This week there was only one lot of carnage and that was John who over wound his motor and shattered his fuselage into about 6 pieces. Ouch!

Saturday night was our karaoke night. This was a pretty big night indeed and the reason this Blog update is late. I ran the bar and made cocktails all night to ensure enough Dutch courage was poured into everyone. The whole night was a hoot. Ray started us off very early in the evening just after our dinner of sushi. Then it was on. The voices were terrible! The costumes hilarious and all in all it was a fabulous evening.
I awoke with a headache, but wasn’t too bad considering I was pretty hammered the night before. Thank goodness Robbie forced me to drink heaps of water before I went to bed.

And that is it for this last week. We have yet another blizzard today. I have to say, the weather this month has been atrocious. We are averaging a blizzard a week at the moment and the charts don’t look like much of a let up for this week either. I guess you get that in the Antarctic hey? ;o]

Till next week.
Have a good one.
Trace

Tower work

 

Antarctic Sea Cucumber

 

Antarctic Starfish

 

Sea Anenomy

 

Penguin Shot

 

My finished Lead Light Mirror. All it needs is a frame.

 

My poor mangled rat

 

All the Ratz lined up to race.

 

10 - 17 July

G’day everyone.

Well, this week has been a week of carnage of all sorts. As I type I am a bit bruised and battered after tripping on a piece of carpet in the wallow last night and down a very ungraceful carpet dive across the floor and into one of the posts in the wallow. Of course this happened in front of absolutely everyone! All I could do was sit on the carpet with tears of pain and laughter streaming down my face as the boys looked on wandering if I was really hurt and all looking quite distressed. Very embarrassing indeed. I am SUCH a cluster!
I now sport no skin on my knees or the top of my right foot and have a very huge black bruise on my right arm.

We had another Blizz during the week – surprise surprise - which did more damage to our recently repaired IPS antenna farm. So up we went to repair what we could on the one day the winds abated for a few hours. By 8pm that night we had winds in excess of 80 knots once more.

There were a team of boys up at Wilkins Runaway doing some work and they struck carnage on their trip back. The caravan careened off the track and was swung sideways with all cars concenteening into each other. A door and a set of steps was literally ripped off the side of the living van while two of the other vans suffered torn walls and a ripped open metal sled bar.
Thank goodness the Hagg was nowhere near the carnage at the time or there may have been some serious human damage as well. But the Hagg was not without mishap either. The tail bar of the trailer was sheered off and fell behind without the boys even realizing in the huge storm until they stopped at a way point.

Today Chris, John and I headed out in a Hagg to find and retrieve the debris. Goodness me, there was a lot of carnage indeed and I am very surprised that we found all of it and bought it back to station. Winds may have been fierce but the debris was in a semi concentrated area of about 1000 metres. We found the abandoned trailer another 1200metres up the track.

Saturday afternoon I finally finished off my "Art piece" Mirror. Now I just need to make the frame and backing. Saturday night saw the first of our hanger ratz sessions. My poor little plane crashed and burned on the first run – having smashed off its wings and torn apart it’s body frame. It was a very sad moment indeed. It didn’t take long for the pool table to become the local “Carnage Area” as rat after rat fell from the sky and was destroyed in some way. But it was a fun evening and we all enjoyed ourselves well into the night. Today I spent some serious time putting the plane back together and also prettying it up so it is truly deserving of the “Prettiest Plane” award in a few weeks time. It hasn’t a hope of beating some of the times already laid down last night.

Next Friday is the second run of rat time trials and then on Saturday night we are having a “Karaoke” night. I have a good bottle of pink champagne put aside for the evening. This will ensure my “Dutch courage” is well and truly covered. I am thinking of belting out the “Age of Aquarius” just so I can wear a caftan and beads and act like a hippy all night. ;o]
Stay tuned for some very funny photos next week I imagine.

Till the - have a good one.

Trace :o]

Replacing the declaration with the American Flag on Peterson Island.

 

View from the top of Motherway Island

 

And his mate