5.20pm
This has been the most amazing afternoon. Minke whales, crabeater, ross, weddell and leopard seals, emperor and adelie penguins and then, wonder of wonders, the wind dropped, it vanished, absolutely flat calm. We broke out of the pack ice into clear water dotted with a few small icebergs. As it was so calm we were allowed to go up to the bow. The engines could hardly be heard, the water was barely rippled and so clear you could see metres down. We followed some swimming adelies and we watched them under water and as they came up for air. The experience was magical out there this afternoon. Most people were talking in little above a whisper, it obviously affected everyone as it did me.
We are only 20nm from Casey and could get in tonight if we wanted to but evidently it is still snowing there and blowing a bit so we are going to stay out til 6am. I think we are going to do another krill trawl - all that wildlife must be eating something.
8pm
We're there! Well, sort of. We continued south through the most amazing ice formations and broke into open water again near the biggest iceberg I have seen . It took nearly half an hour to steam past it and it was less than a kilometre away. At the end of the iceberg - land!! The Frazier Islands came up, our first sighting of Antarctica. After a talk about maps and the data base from Lee, which was very interesting, everyone charged off to vantage points for the first view of the mainland. It is cloudy out there and it was snowing lightly but not a breath of wind. I was up on the deck above the bridge as the cloud broke revealing the Antarctic plateau and the moraine line above Casey. We kept sailing closer and closer - we could see radio masts and the red shed. Then we did a 180 degree turn, dropped the trawl net and headed off into the southern ocean again. 6am they said, and 6am they mean! Not to worry, it is so calm all the anti-slip mats have been removed from the dining room. It is possible to shower without playing chase-the-water. I am not scheduled to go ashore tomorrow so I will be observing operations from the deck. I'll give a full report in the morning.
8.50pm
I went out onto the trawl deck and about six people were standing round five buckets of seawater - which was the result of the krill trawl. They thought it was the same result as the first one earlier today. I was looking in one of the buckets and saw something move. It had two big black eyes and a translucent body about 2cm long and it was swimming around in the bucket. "What's that", I asked. Great excitement it was a krill, about one year old they estimate. In honour of the spotter, they have named it Steve and taken it away to the lab for investigation.
4.30am Thursday
What, you might well ask, am I doing up at this ungodly hour. Simple, I haven't been to bed yet. We had a great party in the Husky bar last night with various people contributing a carton. I'll contribute one on behalf of the ANARE Club between Casey and Macca. The subject of haircuts came up and after more than $200 was raised from those assembled I submitted myself to
cat-killer Sue and her clippers. (The money, by the way, goes to Camp Quality, a charity for cancer kids). I have said I will wear the resulting hairstyle for a day or two, provided it is all taken off no later than the first day out of Casey. That will give it time to get to a reasonable length by the time I get home. I will endeavour to get a pic of it when I get ashore at Casey. The best way of describing it would be a double mohawk with a mini mullet.
I am on the ship all day today but I go ashore tomorrow but have to return to the ship. On Friday I go on a day trip to Wilkes, the first station in this area, which got snowed under and was abandoned about 1970. Then on Saturday I have a night ashore and back to the ship Sunday night.
One great advantage of being up at this hour was that I watched the sunrise over the continent. That was shortly after 3am. It doesn't get totally dark at this time of year in these latitudes. We have an Iranian filmmaker on Board, Mani. Mani was on the deck above the bridge from the time he left the bar, around 2am, and is probably still up there. When Mani steps ashore at Casey he will be the first known Iranian national to set foot in Antarctica, provided he doesn't freeze himself to death in the meantime.
8.30am
Here we are, steaming away from Casey. We dropped anchor about 6 this morning with cloudy but windless weather. The barge came out from Casey about 7.15 with the Station Leader and a few others. The wind suddenly picked up and increased in strength. At 8am we were supposed to have a briefing by the SL but it was getting too risky to stay. They quickly identified those who had to go ashore on the first barge and off they went. We were under way before the barge left the ship. If the wind eases, we will return and take a second load off then start unloading the gear. If not, we will be back tomorrow.
11.10am
A correction to the earlier report, the only people who went ashore were the station people who came out on the barge, there was some sort of mix-up with lifejackets. We are going to try again at 11.30. The master will not anchor the ship if the wind is over 30kn at the station so we are waiting for confirmation that the wind has dropped. It's OK out here between the Frazier Islands and the mainland but we are sheltered. The seal count yesterday was 48 seals on the ice, 20 crabeaters, 8 weddells, 7 leopards, 4 ross and 9 unidentified. This is evidently a remarkable count for one day.
12.15pm
Still heading towards Casey, the red shed is clearly visible from my porthole in cabin D11. It looks as though the first party will get ashore soon but details of that will have to wait for tomorrow's installment as this has to go out in the next five minutes or so. Sandra, the OH&S specialist, has started a campaign to Free Steve! (the krill we caught last night). Signs are appearing around the ship and we'll probably see them all over Casey soon. Steve is alive and well and living in a tank in the marine biology lab.
4pm Wednesday 3 February
We got back to Casey just after I despatched the last report and the barge was on the way out to meet us before we dropped anchor. All the people staying and working at Casey went on the first barge together with the mail. I am due to go ashore tomorrow as long as the weather holds. It has been perfect today, the air is clear and crisp. Wilkes looks only a stone’s throw away and the station seems so close that I could swim there, were I so inclined.
The barge has been backwards and forwards all afternoon taking stores ashore and it will continue to do so through the night as long as the weather holds. Some people are staying out at Wilkes during the resupply. As the barge is being used for cargo hauling, transport to Wilkes is by Haglund. I watched two of them just now trundling across the ice and snow like mating yellow beetles. They can’t go straight round the coast but must make a wide diversion inland as there is a site of special scientific interest (SSSI) just east of the station. No-one is allowed in there without a permit from the Antarctic Division issued before sailing. There are mosses growing in the area that must be protected. The last thing they need is caterpillar tracks or clodhopping expeditioners trampling all over them.
Among the round-trippers is Senator Ross Lightfoot who has a special interest in Antarctic matters. I have had a number of interesting conversations with him about, among other things, linguistics, aborigines and politics (of course). He is a Liberal from WA but no-one is perfect.
10.30pm
I am going ashore at 8am so I’ll have to get ready this evening and make my own cut lunch to take with me. Those of us still aboard spent most of the evening - and long evenings they are too, the sun has only just set - up above the bridge. Blue skies with just a few wisps of cirrus and lenticular altocumulus and not a breath of wind. We took photos in all directions and watched the unloading operations. They finished at 9pm but had made about 20 trips by then. I’ll send this report from the station and attach a couple of pictures.
Those of you in Sydney can tune into 2UE at 4.45pm tomorrow (Friday), I’ll be having a chat with Mike Carlton. If I get the opportunity to add to this tomorrow I will but otherwise the report on my first day ashore will have to wait until I get back to the ship tomorrow night.
11.30am
Ashore at Casey, clear blue skies and not a breath of wind. More tonight.
6.15pm Friday.
I’m back on board the ship and have just finished dinner. I had a great day ashore today, climbed Reeves Hill and walked up to Penguin Pass - real intrepid, Scott-of-the-Antarctic stuff through ice and snow. I had a chat to Mike Carlton this afternoon on 2UE. I was even able to get on the internet and have a look at this page. I was most impressed and my thanks to Col Christiansen who is doing all the work.
About 4pm Marilyn, the Station Leader was looking for a few people to unload containers as they came up. Certain stores cannot be left out in the cold overnight. A squad of us walked down to the green store and waited. Someone produced a football and we spent a pleasant 45 minutes playing kick to kick. Just as the containers to be unloaded arrived, the Hagglunds to the wharf was ready to leave with those who were returning to the ship. I had to leave just as the work started, most unfortunate.
Casey is a lovely station. It doesn’t look much from the main street - big coloured boxes surrounded by grey rock and dirty snow, but sitting on the deck in front of the red shed looking down across the bay to Wilkes, the plateau rising to your right and the Frazier Islands in the distance with icebergs sparkling in a sea so calm they are mirrored, one can be quite content and at peace with the world.
There is a South Polar Skua named Linda who sits outside the red shed. She has been around for a year or more and always comes down when people gather outside. She has learnt that such gatherings often mean barbecues and barbecues mean food. Evidently she has been known to swoop down and steal a steak off a plate being carried and once even walked across the hotplate to snaffle a sausage.
So far I have sold 29 sets of postcards and expect to sell the rest ,tomorrow as all the Casey people want them. I should be able to sell a lot of stuff there as I am staying overnight. There is a reasonable amount of interest in the Club itself and I have been extolling the benefits of membership. Marilyn asked for some membership forms which I gave her but I’ll get a few to sign up tomorrow. I’ll get the round trippers and the Macca people when we leave Casey.
Tomorrow I go to Wilkes.
9am Saturday
Ashore again. We had to be ready to leave the ship at 7.30 this morning. I knew there had to be an ulterior motive. I don't go to Wilkes til this afternoon. In the meantime, there are containers to unload. This is the third straight day of perfect weather. There is hardly a ripple on the bay.
Coming ashore this morning, we saw that there were one or two new icebergs in the bay each with a complement of Adelies. I don't know if I will get to see one close up as the only way to get to Shirley Island is by boat - and the boats only hold two at a time. We shall see. I will be overnight in Wilkes tonight but should be able to get a report away when I get back tomorrow.
Sunday 6 Feb, 6.15pm, fine and sunny, on board the Aurora
I am back on board. I could have stayed ashore tonight but felt like a bit of peace and quiet. Yesterday morning was spent unloading containers before getting the Hagglunds round to Wilkes. A Hagglunds is an extremely uncomfortable, noisy, oversnow vehicle. It has a front cabin that seats the driver and four or five passengers at a pinch and a trailer that can seat about ten without baggage. We had four and a load of baggage and equipment in the trailer as we took off through Penguin Pass and round the coast.
We made the obligatory photo stops on the way round til we came to the Wilkes tip. For those who don't know the history of this area, Wilkes was established in 1956 by the Americans for the International Geophysical Year (IGY) as were many other Antarctic stations. In 1959 the station was handed over to the Australians . The huts began to get snowed under and it was a major task to keep access to the huts year round. In 1968 the replacement station, Repstat was built on the other side of the bay. It was an innovative design for an Antarctic station with all the huts in a line up the hill connected by a corridor with a curved side that faced the prevailing wind. The station was commissioned as Casey in 1969. Twenty years later, rust and general debilitation of the buildings, together with the recognition that the design was not such a good idea, led to the construction of the new Casey a few hundred metres from the first. Most of the Wilkes buildings are now under the snow with just their roofs showing at this time of year. The old transmitter hut, which has not succumbed to the ice, has been converted to the Wilkes Hilton and is used as a base for scientific studies and short holidays by the Casey expeditioners.
The tip, or tips, are spread out along the approach road to Wilkes. All the garbage from 13 to 14 years of habitation is dumped there. There are, for instance, over 1000 oil drums, many of them still full of stuff like anti-freeze, benzene, diesel and kerosene. Many of these are leaking. In the tip are old batteries and many sources of heavy metals which leach into the bay. While the tips at the moment provide continuous but minor contamination of the bay, cleaning them up could release more poisons into the water. Garbage specialists like Rick who is currently at Casey and John who is on the ship with us, are assessing the problem and trying to work out a plan to remove the rubbish. As well as environmental concerns there are heritage concerns. Old garbage dumps are full of artefacts so archeologists have to work hand in hand with the garbos. Over at Casey in Thala Valley is another dump. Some of the rubbish there has been removed but it is estimated that there are 150 container loads still to be shifted. The ship can take 27 containers of rubbish a year - and that includes all the rubbish from the current station as well. Everything that can be is brought back to Australia today. Enough on the garbage.
We were dropped off at the Wilkes Hilton where we left our bags and wandered down over the snow through the old station. Immediately to the left on a hill is the fibreglass dome that used to house the Met radar. Further to the left is another hill with two graves right on the top. The graves are those of two Australians who died at Wilkes. The white crosses stand out against the skyline and can be seen from Casey as well as Wilkes. To the right is a large Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). Permits are required to enter the site and as we didn't have permits we were not allowed there. The SSSI is primarily for the preservation of mosses and lichens but it also contains a large Adelie penguin rookery which we were not allowed to visit because of the SSSI restrictions.
I had given up on ever getting a photo of an Adelie when down near the water there were four of them. I crept down and sat on a rock about 5 metres away and took photos. They were extremely cooperative. When I had used up a roll or two of film I walked back towards Wilkes and saw John the Garbo and Steve the Artist. I showed them where the birds were and went to find Pam who was representing the Antarctic Friends and Families Association (in the old days it was the Antarctic Wives Association). Pam came down as well and more photos were taken. The birds then walked up the coast. Off shore was an ice floe with about twenty Adelies on it drifting along.
After all the excitement, Pam and I walked back to the Hilton for a cup of tea. Most of the others staying the night were there so Pam and I volunteered to cook while they finished their work. There was a radio sched at 7pm so we agreed to have dinner ready by then - and it was. However, after the radio sched, chairs were taken outside onto a huge snow bank in front of the hut, gin and tonics were poured and we sat outside enjoying the early evening sun and the view of the icebergs on Petersen Bank. Eventually we went inside to eat. Outside the hut and round the corner is the dunny. Solids and liquids are kept separate and all solid refuse is bagged and returned to Casey as is all rubbish from the site. Urine and grey water (washing up water etc) are currently disposed of locally but will soon also be returned to Casey for proper disposal. The dunny itself is a handsome green box with windows set up on stilts so a flight of three or four steps is required to reach the door.
All water at Wilkes comes from melted snow and it is a regular task to co out and dig another bucketful. Snow for clean water, you will be pleased to hear, does not come from the area where dirty water is disposed of.
After dinner, there was a solar eclipse. We went for a walk up to the graves. Not a breath of wind and the partial eclipse seemed to intensify the yellow of the setting sun. The icebergs and ice cliffs gleamed gold against a sea of greens and blues. Pam saw a whale in a small bay below the hill on which we were standing. Closer investigation showed it to be a rock with the breaking waves from the incoming tide looking like the spout of a whale. We decided that we had a new species, the Southern Rock Whale and in that light and in those conditions, no-one will know it wasn't alive. The sun was still in eclipse as it dipped below the horizon and we all retired to the hut for a glass or two of port before bed. There were nine of us in the hut which has bunks for six but plenty of mattresses for sleeping on the floor.
Just after we had settled down, the radio blared into life. The eclipse had produced a king tide and the barge and the Uni-float (a pontoon raft) were coming ashore down at the wharf which was well under water by this time. They managed to stop them sinking but not without loss of sleep for the crews who had already worked a 16 hour day and had another one to follow.
This morning we pottered around. Keith from the WA Museum explained the work he is doing to preserve ice bound buildings by using sublimation to get rid of the ice and natural freeze drying to preserve the artefacts. The method is looking very effective and after further study may be the right way to preserve Mawson's Hut, for instance. The Hagglunds arrived and Pam and I went back to Casey where I pottered around for the rest of the day.
I rang my sister, Mary, for her birthday but she was out. When I rang back later the phone was perpetually engaged. I'll send her an email instead.
On the wall in the red shed are the photographs of all the expeditions to Wilkes and both the old and new Caseys. The first photo from Wilkes is of the 1959 party and there was Harry Alderdice. Harry taught me to use the pilot-balloon slide rule thirty-odd years ago. He died recently and permission has been granted to scatter Harry's ashes at Wilkes. This was supposed to happen on this voyage but it will now be the next one. Besides Harry, it was great to see some familiar faces up there like Col Christiansen, Mal Kirton, Chris Gamgee, John Gillies, Kenn Batt, Denise Allen, Richard Stephen, Trevor Olrog and, of course, the ubiquitous Chompers Currie who first scored in 1963 at Wilkes and was up again for the third or fourth time in 1998 (with numerous visits to Mawson, Davis and Macquarie in between).
I decided to come back on board rather than stay ashore and we should be sailing for Macca tomorrow afternoon. After the first day ashore, by the way, I had the remaining hair on my head removed. I was not going to have every photo of me in Antarctica looking even more silly with that haircut. I am now bald.
I spent a fair bit of time in the Met Office at Casey looking at the equipment they have there. I will be writing an article for Aurora when I return and Mal Kirton asked me to have a look at the changes in meteorology in Antarctica over the years. I was most impressed with the modern office but you will have to wait for my Aurora article for the details.
Resupply in many ways is easier than it used to be with everything in containers. This is OK if the containers are going ashore as they were on this trip. Some resupplies are done by helicopter - Macquarie Island for instance - and every container has to be opened and emptied and the contents weighed into individual loads. There is much more involved in the resupply today as well, all waste, garbage etc is returned to Australia or burned in a high temperature incinerator. There are no garbage tips any more. All rubbish is separated for reuse or recycling.
One huge gripe! (I'm entitled to one, I haven't complained about anything else) The boots issued for the Antarctic are great - they are warm and comfortable and have a good grip on ice, snow and rock - but you must remove your boots before entering a building and they are lace-up boots. Most of the people down there shorten the laces and tie them off so that the boots become slip-ons but that means that the foot is not held assecurely as it should be. For us JAFOs who have to give the boots back at the end of the voyage, such lace shortening is not an option. Surely it would be possible to design a boot that holds the foot securely but at the same time is easy to get into and out of. I am not a boot maker but even Velcro would be better than laces. I will leave that to the experts at the Division but something needs to be done.
I heard a story while I was ashore. A scientist had a piece of equipment that wasn't working so he took it to one of the techs. "Only trouble is", said the scientist, "it's a sealed unit". "In Antarctica", replied the tech, "there is no such thing as a sealed unit", and promptly fixed the equipment. That attitude towards Antarctic ingenuity and survival was there with Mawson and Shackleton, it was there on the first ANARE in 1947/48, it was there in 1972 on Macquarie when I was south and I was delighted to see it is still there in 2000.