Monday 15th July 2013

Today after smoko we all went down to the mechanical workshop to do Hagglunds sea ice recovery training. It was pretty full on and we had to run through a mock recovery pretending we had broken through the sea ice. First we had to unload all the heavy recovery gear from on the roof of the caboose and set it all up. This consisted of two heavy hinged ramps, cables, chains, ice anchors and three turfers. Once setup we winched the Hagg back up onto the ice and then packed all the kit away.

Next demonstration was setting up and using the electric winch. Now I am finally free to use the Hagglunds out on the sea ice. After lunch I did some more work on my underwater camera. I made a rudder to hopefully stop it turning or spinning in the current or from cable twist. If this does not prove successful then I will attach a heavy weight on a one meter cable below the camera to hold it still on the sea bed.

Before dinner I had a BPSK digital QSO with a guy on Reunion Island who I had talked to before from Perth. After dinner Keldyn and I started making a souvenir ice axe. We cut the two ice axe head pieces out of some five millimetre brass bar and within a few hours we had roughly shaped them and I had started to cut the teeth into mine. Every Monday we will spend a few working on them and it shouldn't take too long to finish and they will be nice souvenirs to take home and remember our time spent down here.

  

The start of my ice axe

Taking shape