20 – 26th November. A VERY BUSY WEEK INDEED.
Goodness, this has been a busy week. We have had lots of debacles as well as lots of extra activity, so this will be a bit of an epic Blog.
Firstly there was the skidoo that went through the sea ice and is now sitting on the bottom of the sea floor at 65+ metres in depth. It isn’t being retrieved any time soon – or probably ever for that matter. 65metres is too deep for the divers to reach safely; also there is no light at that depth and no way to get light down there.
Oh and just for the record – I had NOTHING to do with that debacle. I was actually covering Comms back on station while a group of boys went for a trip via the sea ice to Wilkes at the time. The sea ice was closed early than usual after that, for obvious reasons. ;o]
The second debacle – again NOTHING to do with me - occurred when an underground cavern opened up beneath the excavator as it was making its way to the wharf. It swallowed the excavator almost whole! Luckily for the driver the cab fell in backwards and he was able to scramble out to safety. It took 3 days to dig a massive trench into the cavern and retrieve the excavator. The cabin is pretty smashed up but the rest looks good. The excavator will have to return to Australia where I think a new cabin will fix it up.
Goodness, I hope the Div have their insurance paid up this month!
The third debacle occurred at 11:30PM Tuesday night. A fire alarm at any time of day is a nuisance but at 11:30pm on a school night, when most people are snuggled in their beds it is even more so. The fire panel in Ops indicated that there was a problem - or a fire even - at the Transmitter hut, which is a 2KM drive off station. Botheration! Off the fire team scrambled in the fire Hagg to see what was going on. The old riggers hut had leaked water into the fire line and set off the alarm. All the winterers reckon we have had more than our fair share of fires at Casey this year, there has been three this season, so a false alarm made a nice change.
After many false starts the CASA’s finally arrived at Casey Station on Monday. They were originally due to arrive anywhere between the 1st and 5th of October. Just a tad over schedule: VH-VHA touched safely on the S1 skiway under a beautiful blue sky with winds of less than 10 knots. VH-VHB followed only minutes behind. The ferry fuel tanks were removed from the planes and replaced with seats ready to get to their final destination of Davis on Thursday. On Wednesday, a flight to Bunger Hills to prepare for a science journey later in the year saw me doing radio Comms with the planes for the trip. This is just another aspect of being a Comms tech in Antarctica -. Jack of all trades; master of none – that’s me! It is one of the things I love about this job – so many various roles and work to perform. You would never cram all of this into one job in a lifetime back home, let alone into one year! The sad part of the CASA’s arriving and moving to Davis station is that Greg has moved on with them. So it was goodbye to our friend for this year. Greg and I are good friends, so we will stay in touch, which is nice. Toodles Gregels!!! That is another great thing about this place: the friendships you form. I have made some amazing friends that will last a lifetime during my time here. That is a rare and special thing indeed.
On Sunday the inaugural flyover for the Wilkins airstrip occurred. Now all we need is a plane to land and test the runway and things will be on the way to having a working Australian runway in Antarctica. It will mean many more scientists can visit for shorter periods of time on a fly in, fly out basis rather than spending a lot of time that they can’t afford on a ship. It is a pretty political topic so I won’t share my views on the whole endeavour with you.
The weather this week has been just gorgeous. We reached +0.2 degrees during the week. I was roaming around in a T-Shirt with no hat or gloves for two days. After a weekend of Blizz it was nice to have a week of blue skies. The sun sets at nearly midnight and rises again at 2am now, so there is light 24/7 once more. Lots of adventuring can be done after work now when the weather is nice. Taking advantage of the top weather, a few of us took off on Quads on Monday night to Robbo’s. It was one of the hardest rides I have done for a while. The sea ice is dogdy now, so we went inland to Robbo’s. The terrain was very rough, with soft snow. There was nothing for it but to gun the quads and ride hard to get through. Once at Robbo’s we visited Mel who had a group from Casey out field training and said hello, then went down to the sea ice in Penny Bay. We wanted to see how the ice was holding up and were planning on going to Odberd Island in search of an Emperor penguin.
What a debacle that became! Three of the boys managed to make it over a tide crack, but by the time I hit it they had weakened it enough that my quad went straight into it. Bugger! Wet feet and lots of cursing got me out. Then closer to Odberd Island, John went into a big area of slush and sank to the tops of his wheels. His was way more spectacular than my effort I have to say. We tried towing him out, but ended up bogging the towing quad as well. In the end the 4 boys had to man haul the quads out of the bog. I just watched and took photos; as is the Antarctic way! Ha ha. As we headed back to more solid ice Brian remarked to me “You know Trace, I reckon there isn’t anything we haven’t done this year mate”. I am absolutely positive he is correct. I am actually really glad we went out that night. I was able to stand on the sea ice in front of Obderd Island and take a beautiful panorama picture of one of the penguin rookeries. By Saturday all that sea ice was open water and will not be re-freezing until next winter now. Just for good measure, on the way home, back on O’Brien Bay, I went into another tide crack and then had to make the run up the ice cliffs four times before managing to reach the top. The snow was so deep and soft and the cliff so steep it was a massive effort to reach the top. I managed one tantrum near the very end. I was stuffed and my arm was as well. However, it had been a great evening ride. I had fun. We arrived home at 10:45pm with the sun just beginning to think about setting.
Of course as soon as the weekend arrived the weather crapped out – always the way. We had cancelled our Robbo’s trip once due to bad weather, we weren’t cancelling again. So we headed off into falling snow – being very intrepid in the horrid conditions – to Robbo’s Hut. Robbo’s is definitely my favourite place in Antarctica. I just love being there. The ride out was really hard on my arm so after that trip out I rode the skidoo for the rest of the weekend. I am not overly fond of the Skidoo, it is very unstable, but it was easier on my arm. Plus I did get it up to 100clicks at one stage and got some amazing air – pretty well sphincter clenching though I have to say. While it didn’t overly hurt my arm, I do think I compressed my spine! Ha ha. All good fun.
I got to put a tick in my last box of stuff to do down here – I finally came face to face with an emperor penguin while at Robbo’s. They are a huge bird and very beautiful. They are graceful with a very loud and distance call. It was awesome to finally see one up close. We awoke to weather that was not too bad on Saturday so we toodled down over the sea ice – what is left of it - and visited the seals at Williams Nunatak once last time. The seals are all thriving and are growing like monsters!! I can no longer call them pups, they are adolescents now. I can hardly believe how big they have gotten in such a short space of time. There are still some young pups amongst them, but not a lot. It has been the loveliest experience to watch these seals come up onto the ice large and fat and heavily pregnant, then give birth to skinny little bundles of fur, then see the pups grow into adolescents. The circle of life is an amazing thing. I think we will be the last visitors to the Nunatak. It is only accessible via the sea ice and the sea ice is very quickly breaking away. Soon the seals will head back out to the ocean and resume doing whatever it is seals do out there. I should have googled that shouldn’t I and found out what they do and informed you all? I suspect it is just eat, swim, sleep and eat some more. Here is a question - How the hell did we all survive before Google!? Ah yes, now I remember, they are called books! How quickly we forget hey?
I am sad to report, that my beautiful blue berg has almost lost its battle to the oncoming summer weather. It now sits almost surrounded by water, the sea ice nearly gone. It is made up of an ice cliff face and only a big pile of ice rubble now - very sad indeed. I have visited this Massive Ice Giant over the whole winter season and to see it disintegrate away is a shame. But I have photos of me hugging it, so it will always be remembered. ;o]
My right arm is pretty well cactus now. The tennis elbow is back and I am in a niggling sort of pain 24/7. Some days, like the morning after Monday night’s huge quad ride, I can’t even hold my coffee cup. Other days it isn’t too bad. The doc has given me specific exercises to do daily and he has started Ultrasound treatment on it. He says I can have one more cortisone injection. After that no amount of cortisone will work. I will hang out and put up with it until just before boarding the ship for home and then I’ll have the shot. I know I won’t stop going out riding quads hard, riding the skidoo, generally having a great time down here just because it hurts it my arm. That just isn’t me. Go Hard or Go Home; that is pretty well my motto in life. I may never get back to this part of the world and I don’t intend an injury to stop me making the most of it all. The doc says it is pretty well stuffed and will take up to 18 months to heal anyway, so another 6 weeks until the ship arrives won’t make it any worse. It won’t help, but it can’t get worse. ;op
OK, that is enough for this week. I have no more stories to share with you. It has been a pretty big week in Casey town I have to say.
Till next week – take it easy dudes!
Trace x
Firstly there was the skidoo that went through the sea ice and is now sitting on the bottom of the sea floor at 65+ metres in depth. It isn’t being retrieved any time soon – or probably ever for that matter. 65metres is too deep for the divers to reach safely; also there is no light at that depth and no way to get light down there.
Oh and just for the record – I had NOTHING to do with that debacle. I was actually covering Comms back on station while a group of boys went for a trip via the sea ice to Wilkes at the time. The sea ice was closed early than usual after that, for obvious reasons. ;o]
The second debacle – again NOTHING to do with me - occurred when an underground cavern opened up beneath the excavator as it was making its way to the wharf. It swallowed the excavator almost whole! Luckily for the driver the cab fell in backwards and he was able to scramble out to safety. It took 3 days to dig a massive trench into the cavern and retrieve the excavator. The cabin is pretty smashed up but the rest looks good. The excavator will have to return to Australia where I think a new cabin will fix it up.
Goodness, I hope the Div have their insurance paid up this month!
The third debacle occurred at 11:30PM Tuesday night. A fire alarm at any time of day is a nuisance but at 11:30pm on a school night, when most people are snuggled in their beds it is even more so. The fire panel in Ops indicated that there was a problem - or a fire even - at the Transmitter hut, which is a 2KM drive off station. Botheration! Off the fire team scrambled in the fire Hagg to see what was going on. The old riggers hut had leaked water into the fire line and set off the alarm. All the winterers reckon we have had more than our fair share of fires at Casey this year, there has been three this season, so a false alarm made a nice change.
After many false starts the CASA’s finally arrived at Casey Station on Monday. They were originally due to arrive anywhere between the 1st and 5th of October. Just a tad over schedule: VH-VHA touched safely on the S1 skiway under a beautiful blue sky with winds of less than 10 knots. VH-VHB followed only minutes behind. The ferry fuel tanks were removed from the planes and replaced with seats ready to get to their final destination of Davis on Thursday. On Wednesday, a flight to Bunger Hills to prepare for a science journey later in the year saw me doing radio Comms with the planes for the trip. This is just another aspect of being a Comms tech in Antarctica -. Jack of all trades; master of none – that’s me! It is one of the things I love about this job – so many various roles and work to perform. You would never cram all of this into one job in a lifetime back home, let alone into one year! The sad part of the CASA’s arriving and moving to Davis station is that Greg has moved on with them. So it was goodbye to our friend for this year. Greg and I are good friends, so we will stay in touch, which is nice. Toodles Gregels!!! That is another great thing about this place: the friendships you form. I have made some amazing friends that will last a lifetime during my time here. That is a rare and special thing indeed.
On Sunday the inaugural flyover for the Wilkins airstrip occurred. Now all we need is a plane to land and test the runway and things will be on the way to having a working Australian runway in Antarctica. It will mean many more scientists can visit for shorter periods of time on a fly in, fly out basis rather than spending a lot of time that they can’t afford on a ship. It is a pretty political topic so I won’t share my views on the whole endeavour with you.
The weather this week has been just gorgeous. We reached +0.2 degrees during the week. I was roaming around in a T-Shirt with no hat or gloves for two days. After a weekend of Blizz it was nice to have a week of blue skies. The sun sets at nearly midnight and rises again at 2am now, so there is light 24/7 once more. Lots of adventuring can be done after work now when the weather is nice. Taking advantage of the top weather, a few of us took off on Quads on Monday night to Robbo’s. It was one of the hardest rides I have done for a while. The sea ice is dogdy now, so we went inland to Robbo’s. The terrain was very rough, with soft snow. There was nothing for it but to gun the quads and ride hard to get through. Once at Robbo’s we visited Mel who had a group from Casey out field training and said hello, then went down to the sea ice in Penny Bay. We wanted to see how the ice was holding up and were planning on going to Odberd Island in search of an Emperor penguin.
What a debacle that became! Three of the boys managed to make it over a tide crack, but by the time I hit it they had weakened it enough that my quad went straight into it. Bugger! Wet feet and lots of cursing got me out. Then closer to Odberd Island, John went into a big area of slush and sank to the tops of his wheels. His was way more spectacular than my effort I have to say. We tried towing him out, but ended up bogging the towing quad as well. In the end the 4 boys had to man haul the quads out of the bog. I just watched and took photos; as is the Antarctic way! Ha ha. As we headed back to more solid ice Brian remarked to me “You know Trace, I reckon there isn’t anything we haven’t done this year mate”. I am absolutely positive he is correct. I am actually really glad we went out that night. I was able to stand on the sea ice in front of Obderd Island and take a beautiful panorama picture of one of the penguin rookeries. By Saturday all that sea ice was open water and will not be re-freezing until next winter now. Just for good measure, on the way home, back on O’Brien Bay, I went into another tide crack and then had to make the run up the ice cliffs four times before managing to reach the top. The snow was so deep and soft and the cliff so steep it was a massive effort to reach the top. I managed one tantrum near the very end. I was stuffed and my arm was as well. However, it had been a great evening ride. I had fun. We arrived home at 10:45pm with the sun just beginning to think about setting.
Of course as soon as the weekend arrived the weather crapped out – always the way. We had cancelled our Robbo’s trip once due to bad weather, we weren’t cancelling again. So we headed off into falling snow – being very intrepid in the horrid conditions – to Robbo’s Hut. Robbo’s is definitely my favourite place in Antarctica. I just love being there. The ride out was really hard on my arm so after that trip out I rode the skidoo for the rest of the weekend. I am not overly fond of the Skidoo, it is very unstable, but it was easier on my arm. Plus I did get it up to 100clicks at one stage and got some amazing air – pretty well sphincter clenching though I have to say. While it didn’t overly hurt my arm, I do think I compressed my spine! Ha ha. All good fun.
I got to put a tick in my last box of stuff to do down here – I finally came face to face with an emperor penguin while at Robbo’s. They are a huge bird and very beautiful. They are graceful with a very loud and distance call. It was awesome to finally see one up close. We awoke to weather that was not too bad on Saturday so we toodled down over the sea ice – what is left of it - and visited the seals at Williams Nunatak once last time. The seals are all thriving and are growing like monsters!! I can no longer call them pups, they are adolescents now. I can hardly believe how big they have gotten in such a short space of time. There are still some young pups amongst them, but not a lot. It has been the loveliest experience to watch these seals come up onto the ice large and fat and heavily pregnant, then give birth to skinny little bundles of fur, then see the pups grow into adolescents. The circle of life is an amazing thing. I think we will be the last visitors to the Nunatak. It is only accessible via the sea ice and the sea ice is very quickly breaking away. Soon the seals will head back out to the ocean and resume doing whatever it is seals do out there. I should have googled that shouldn’t I and found out what they do and informed you all? I suspect it is just eat, swim, sleep and eat some more. Here is a question - How the hell did we all survive before Google!? Ah yes, now I remember, they are called books! How quickly we forget hey?
I am sad to report, that my beautiful blue berg has almost lost its battle to the oncoming summer weather. It now sits almost surrounded by water, the sea ice nearly gone. It is made up of an ice cliff face and only a big pile of ice rubble now - very sad indeed. I have visited this Massive Ice Giant over the whole winter season and to see it disintegrate away is a shame. But I have photos of me hugging it, so it will always be remembered. ;o]
My right arm is pretty well cactus now. The tennis elbow is back and I am in a niggling sort of pain 24/7. Some days, like the morning after Monday night’s huge quad ride, I can’t even hold my coffee cup. Other days it isn’t too bad. The doc has given me specific exercises to do daily and he has started Ultrasound treatment on it. He says I can have one more cortisone injection. After that no amount of cortisone will work. I will hang out and put up with it until just before boarding the ship for home and then I’ll have the shot. I know I won’t stop going out riding quads hard, riding the skidoo, generally having a great time down here just because it hurts it my arm. That just isn’t me. Go Hard or Go Home; that is pretty well my motto in life. I may never get back to this part of the world and I don’t intend an injury to stop me making the most of it all. The doc says it is pretty well stuffed and will take up to 18 months to heal anyway, so another 6 weeks until the ship arrives won’t make it any worse. It won’t help, but it can’t get worse. ;op
OK, that is enough for this week. I have no more stories to share with you. It has been a pretty big week in Casey town I have to say.
Till next week – take it easy dudes!
Trace x
posted by Tracey in Casey - Antarctica at 7:45 pm
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home