When the AA comes to town

Hello readers!

I'm finally writing again and apologise for the delays, they have been caused not only by my lazyness but also by me trying to obtain software that wil allow me to extract some still images from my diving videos so I can update everyone on the FOCE project we've been setting up.

The other thing that has most recently been slowing me down was the presence of this huge orange ship in the bay at Casey; Aurora Australis on it's annual resupply voyage.

The Aurora Australis, a 311ft long Icebreaker that generally resides in Hobart, made it's 16day trip down through the southern ocean and ice to bring a few passengers, a bunch of cargo and a bunch of supplies to Casey. It is also starting it's marine science voyage, during which it will meander through the southern ocean collecting oceanographic and marine data and samples. In fact, here's a link to see in live what the view of the ship is: http://www.antarctica.gov.au/webcams/aurora.

 With this big orange blob on the horizon, a lot of things changed for us at Casey. Resupply means that the local bar was closed for the duration of AA's presence to not distract the crew whom have been deprived of alcohol during their voyage down. It also makes it easier for the Casey staff to be on time for our 'round-the-clock shifts 7 days a week.

Some shiny new Haggs

some of the alcohol order

The first part of resupply involves the unloading of all the cargo the ship brought down, that can include new Hagglunds (our main transport vehicle for long distance field work, and what we use for all our diving gear), new heavy machinery, but also new science gear and personnal effects for summerers and the new batch of winterers. This means we also all finally received our alcohol allocations, but had to wait until the ship left (last night), to delve into them.  

During the cargo portion of resupply, the FOCE team was allowed to continue with our project and do some diving. This meant we were not as actively involved in the transport of tons of shipping containers to and from the ship. We were however required to stop all other activities and help when it came to the time of refuelling.

Icebergs catching on the fuel line

Casey station runs mostly on Diesel, but uses some unleaded mixes for their light vehicles (quads and snowmobiles), and this is the only opportunity for any refuelling to take place for the next year, making it a critical event. 

Watchful morning crew on
the lower fuel farm

There are no other sources of power here, unlike Mawson which also runs some wind 

power. Over the course of about 36hours, we pumped approx 940,000l of fuel through a narrow (~20cm diameter) hose from the ship to the fuel farms on land. 

the fuel line is visible here as the ripples change along it

Due to the topography, the ship has to stay out in the bay, and cannot physically dock at Casey, making the whole process much more challenging. All cargo is moved using a single barge taxi-ing back and forth, and the fuel line has to be kept clear of all the icebergs and pieces of floating ice that may snag it.  

Because the process involved includes the installation of tension anchors to hold the fuel line in place while the boat may swing, and to keep it clear of some of the reef structures in the bay, the refuelling process involves an extensive set-up and pack-down process. Ideally these are only done once, but this year we got 1/3 of the way through refuelling and were warned of oncoming high-winds so the whole installation was packed down and refuelling put on standby for a day and a half.

My role in all this was to take on some iceberg and fuel-line wrangling responsibilities, from 4:00 to 8:00 and then again from 16:00 to 20:00 over the whole refuelling process. Since the standby period was weather dependent, we were never quite sure how long it would last, getting up in the morning to find out whether we could go back to bed for a few hours, or hop into our mustang suits and sit in a zodiak for 4 hours.  

driving icebergs around

Thankfully weather was very clement over the days we were pumping fuel, and it was actually a very pleasant role to have. I do often say I'm much happier on or in the water than I am on land (I could skiing as being on water for those wondering about my love of the pistes– it's just frozen water!). And so I spent a few days zipping around in the bay on a little boat (IRB), wearing a full flotation suit called a mustang suit, looking for any evidence of spillage from the fuel line and moving ice floats either under the hose or using the boats to push them out of the way of the fuel line. I never thought large chunks of ice could move so quickly as when you are trying to keep up with them, and definitely got quite a workout from lifting the heavy fuel line over many small icebergs.  

Sunrise behind the red shed

Casey at about 04:00

Now I know those shift hours just seem downright cruel, especially starting at 4am, but I was quite happy to be getting on the water at that hour, when the sun is just below the horizon, and the light is stunning. 

Watching the orange hue illuminating the side of the icebergs, then creeping down the height of the Aurora Australis was quite spectacular, and almost enough to distract from the cold on slow mornings.  

Glassy conditions on the morning of Aurora Australis' departure

Unwinding after a long week of work

After about a week and a half in the bay, the Aurora is now back on it's voyage north. Last night we sent it off amidst a bunch of expired flares, and celebrated the tension that left with the ship. 

Anticipating last night's big night of celebration, today was declared a rest day so we might catch up on some sleep. In the FOCE team we are anticipating the next two days being pretty busy as we try and sort out some technicalities before Christmas is upon us.  

....And here are some bonus ice-cliff photos taken during one of my shifts to wish you a Merry Christmas. 

Surviving!

Hi, I know I am much overdue, and I deeply apologize for that. I just feel like I have not had a minute to myself in the last few weeks. Work is finally getting into full swing and getting us out the door first thing in the morning and back just barely in time for dinner. And I will admit that after dinner my next priority has been to socialize with my fellow expeditioners (which you all know know is as important as eating to me), and with the lack of darkness that easily occupies my whole evening.

That being said, the evenings I have not been making friends or saying goodbye to new friends (most of the winterers just took off this last week); I have been away on survival or travel training or just sleeping to make up for the big days.  

Winds gusting past station in the morning

In order to leave Casey station and explore the surroundings, we all need to undertake “survival training”, a day and a half training period during which we go out, learn a bit about orienteering and survival skills that might be required should we get stuck in unfavourable (aka Antarctic) conditions. First we get issued with our survival bags, which we are to have with us at all times when we leave station limits. These include a sleeping bag, bivouak bag, dehydrated food rations, an ice-axe, throw bag (in case you fell through a bit of sea-ice and needed someone to drag you out) and all the survival clothing we need to have should the beautiful sunny day you leave on turn into a blizzard. These bags are quite sizeable, and once packed with the essentials do not leave much room for many personal items.  

Fellow expeditionner survivors and our FTO

On the morning of our survival training we spend a while sitting around with compasses and maps of the area, learning to correct for the 101° (!!!) offset between compass readings and True North, and seeing how best to navigate the terrain when there are few visual cues. We get issued GPS's for the duration of our training and sent to the Comms office to check out. In order to leave station, every party needs to file a trip application, fill in an “intentions” board, and check in regularly via radio with the comms operators back at Casey. At first this might seem a little excessive, but frankly, after the horrible conditions we went out for our survival training in, it is quite comforting to know that someone somewhere knows where you are and when you are supposed to be back. So after all this hooplah, we finally set out for survival training, a small group of 6 of us, accompanied by our Field training officer (FTO). Oh, did I forget to mention the weather was quite shitty when we left and only supposed to get worse over night?`And by shitty I mean 65kph winds which eventually reached 130kph gusts over night (while we slept in bivouak bags), so even though we were lucky enough for it to not be snowing, any loose snow and even some of the hardened chunks of snow were getting picked up and blow past us at great speeds all day.  

Myself (green goggles) and the chef,
making our way through the blistering winds

We set off for the recently explored land of Shirley Island (which you discovered in my last post about penguins), using GPS and navigation skills to get us there. After practising throwing our throw bags and being told to use our survival bags for flotations should we break through the ice, we drilled into said sea ice to make sure it was a safe thickness to allow for us to safely cross it, and wandered our way across the ice to Shirley for lunch. 

Ice-drilling. The ice gets saltier as you approach
sea water. Think about it. Salty Ice. wtf?

 Can you believe the ice only needs to be 20cm thick (if it is good quality) for us to safely cross it on foot? That seems MUCH too thin for my brain, especially when that does not change with distance from shore! But then again, they would not be putting us at any kind of unnecessary risk and the ice so far has been much closer to the 1.5 / 2 metre thick marks. As we crossed the ice we were greeted by a little group of incredibly curious Adelies, with whom we seemed to have a little bit of a stand-off before they got the courage to scurry past us.  

Exepditioners vs Penguins

Lunch on Shirley would have been incredibly unpleasant had it not been for the “mega bivvy” we had brought. Essentially a parachute of wind-proof fabric which we pulled over the group and sat on, sheltering us from the blistering winds while we had a quick bite.

Mega bivvy, provider of warm noisy shelter!

Due to the extreme conditions we were facing with our particular training period (other groups had warm sunny days for theirs!), we had to modify our plans and head to the wharf to set up camp. We continued practising navigation skills, and made our way back against the wind, agreeing to not really cheat our survival experience and minimize our stop indoors on station where we needed to collect cooking supplies for the night.  

Wharf road, between snow banks

Our trek down to the wharf was an adventurous one, as we walked the road I had meandered along a few weeks earlier in minimal gear, we were climbing 2m snow drifts that had formed across the road and fighting the winds which had picked up to about 100kph gusts by then, trying to not let our backpacks serve as sails.

Down at the wharf we got to see how much of the ice had broken out since I'd last been there, and set up a strategy as to whether we actually would spend the night in these conditions or talk our way through it and then return to station. Team moral was surprisingly high, and everyone was incredibly good at keeping track of each-other and the general understanding was that we would dig out the area where we intended to camp, have dinner and set up our bivvy bags. Then we would evaluate whether we actually spent the night in them or would use the blizzard-lines we set up around camp and emergency procedure we defined to reconvene in the hut nearby.

Whitecaps and broken ice

 

Don't burn the snow!

     

The doc in her bivvy

Some sat down for a delicious meal (the perks of having a chef in our group!), while others stubbornly ate dehydrated meals cooked in the melted snow we gathered. When we finally retired to our little “chip packets”, the winds were still increasing, but team moral was also still high. I actually found the small space surprisingly cosy, as it quickly warmed up while trying to crawl around and organise my bed.

Surprisingly cozy

 After such an exciting day of fighting magical storm conditions, I must say I was quite exhausted, and surprisingly enough managed to get a decent amount of sleep; only waking up on a few occasions to the snow flurries on my face sneaking through the draw-string opening of my bivvy.

Room with a view

 

In the morning we woke up, packed up, and had a good cup of hot coffee before setting off across the wind-swept road back to station. The winds were still really strong, but we all found the energy to get through them and back home. Upon our return we were greeted as heroes (or at least like bad-asses), truly having survived some rough Antarctic conditions that our fellow expeditionners had spent the evening gawking at from their cosy station seats. What a rush to actually get to see how powerful nature really is down here, and the experience definitely instilled a deeper respect for the environment I am now living in.

Walking back up the wharf road

Casey was still under siege of the weather

Still beaming from how epic this adventure really is

Adeliae

             

              Hi folks! I know I've been a bit behind on this post, and I apologize. Work has picked up a notch, I got a bit sick last week (but managed to kick it in a single day of being out of commission – thank goodness for a strong immune system!), and I've finally gotten to get out into the field a bit! So, needless to say there are a LOT of exciting updates.  

Even the sign has penguins!

                 

       First things first though, about 8 days ago I got to go visit the magical location of Shirley Island, situated about a 20-min stroll from Casey station limits. This is the home to a number of Adélie penguin rookeries and the sea-ice bridge also currently provides a haul-out spot for a few Weddell seals.  

Shirley Island and the ice we cross to get to it

        Yes, when I say sea-ice bridge, I mean that you can currently walk to the island from land over a frozen channel spanning most of the length of the island. We have to measure and monitor the ice thickness to make sure it is safe to cross, but then can happily stroll across on foot if it is even just 20cm thick!! (provided it is "good" ice). 

Mind you there are a few limitations, like carrying a survival bag in case you get trapped on the island, carrying a throw bag in case someone falls through the ice, and an ice-pick to hopefully claw your way out of the frigid water should you fall in. 

Crossing the sea-ice.
Notice the stress crack to the left of the photo

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

           We also had to be accompanied by one of the beardy winterers (well I guess they didn't HAVE to be beardy)  because at this stage as we were not survival-trained.  

Penguins in sight!

And yes, they are actually all shiny and pretty when clean! 

       Before we even got onto the other side of this sea-ice, we'd been met by a few curious Adelies. These little guys are some of the most charismatic and curious little buggers I've encountered in the wild. They are truly inquisitive, and in proper penguin manner, relatively uncoordinated. 

              Here comes the penguin photo spamming portion of this blog post where I have to try and limit the 160+ photos and videos I took in one single afternoon to a few choice ones. 

Mind you, I promise you will be seeing more pictures of these funky little guys over the course of my stay here (I even just got some brilliant video footage on my most recent adventure - survival training – but that is for another day's blog).  

Sippin' on some snow

Let's not forget the Skua that nest in the same area

Post-copulation pair

The penguins are currently breeding, which allowed for some really interesting observations, both of actualy copulation but also of the ritual pebble-gathering on the part of the males, and a fair bit of agressive behaviour as well.

Stealing pebbles!

           We probably spend about 2 hours out on Shirley Island just watching and taking photos/videos of these fantastic creatures, which was long enough to be fully desensitized to the stench they emanate.

BIIIIIIG Yawn

            

           Now, don't forget this is also a spot where we got to see some Weddell seals! What I was not expecting was to actually get to HEAR them on the surface. These three seals were snoozing on the sea-ice, and it would appear one of them was sleep-talking. For those of you who have no idea what a Weddell seal might sound like, I encourage you to listen here (http://www.antarctica.gov.au/about-antarctica/sounds or here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CRBovMIvMI ); because no matter how much I can try and describe it as 1970's Sci-Fi movie special effects sound; you just can't believe it until you hear it.  It was pretty incredible to get to hang out with the penguins for so long and even more so get to witness the vocalising of the Weddells, which I had no idea was ever done on the surface.

               When it was finally time to depart, we had our passage blocked by a little guy who'd decided he wanted to follow us home, leaving us somewhat torn between following the rest of our group up the hill and making sure he got the 5m clearance we are instructed to give penguins. He eventually gave up on those silly humans who kept walking away from him and scrambled past the ones stupidly gawking at him and taking photos on his path back to the island.  

"Hey, what are you guys up to?"

"Can I come? Pleeeeeeease?"

"awwww, you guys are no fun.... :("

         It was a pretty magical day for everyone I believe, and I've already written so much about it I'm just going to have to make a separate blog post to talk a bit about some of the field work I've been doing, so keep your eyes out for that in the next week!  

There is some penguin pornography featured in the top right-hand corner of this photo. Just a heads up. 

And let's not forget how cool the nesting Skuas around Shirley are aswell!