Friday 7th March 2014

This morning I woke very tired after the last couple of day’s activities. I spent most of the morning catching up on emails and the bloody gamma ray detector in ARPANSA had died once again. I spent a bit more time chipping away at my annual report and late in the afternoon I went down to the transmitter building and bands were going nuts once again. I put a few calls out on 10m and to my surprise I had over thirty contacts to Australia and New Zealand. This was a first for me in over fourteen months down here and there were a lot of happy chappies out there in radio land tonight. Tonight we had fish & chips for dinner while Justin, Keldyn and the Doc went camping out in the central Masson’s as the wind increased to over forty knots.

Tectonic Motion Monitoring of Antarctica Using Precise GPS Measurements

Precise Point Positioning using GPS to measure tectonic motion in Antarctica is done at seven locations including Mawson station and has been gathering data since 2004. Data has shown Mawson is moving roughly 1.30 ~ 4.90 mm/year in a westerly direction and as a result of tectonic motion, gathered data has revealed Antarctica rotates in the same direction as the Earth's rotation, centering on the outline of Mawson station. The approximate rotation amount based on X-Y plane was 0.001±0.0001 per year.

Thursday 6th March 2014

This morning the winds were quite light again and our biologists wanted to go boating once more. This time they wanted to go as far east as the Klung Islands and then work our way back to Mawson via the many others Islands on the way back looking for debris and to audit the Adélie penguins. The weather was overcast all day with light wind and it was very cold. The water was very clear and after we dropped off our passengers we putted around the lee of the islands looking at all the sea creatures under water.

I used the paddle to raise a large starfish for a closer look and we also saw a large sea worm the same as the one I found frozen in the sea ice six months ago and lots of sea spiders. We saw a few Weddell seals sun baking here and there on the ice and also a Weddell seal in the water that I managed to take a picture of. Having my hands in the water for about ten seconds made my hands go off and the pain was excruciating but worth the effort. It was another great day out on the water, not as good as yesterday, but even a shit day on the water is better than a good day at work. We arrived back on station late in the afternoon cold and exhausted ready for a hot shower and a feed.

Wednesday 5th March 2014

This morning the weather was perfect and around nine o'clock three boats and nine of us headed off down to the Rookery Islands. We headed down in about a ten knot following wind that gradually died down to nothing and by the time we got there the sea had glassed out. It was one of those magical days on the water that don't come around too often. On each Island we would drop of four people as that is all that is allowed onshore to audit the Adélie penguins and to look for debris while the rest of us went berging while we waited for them to call us on the radio to come back and pick them up.

The scenery was really spectacular yet it was sad to see hardly any wildlife. On each Island there were no Adélie chicks at all and only a few Adélie adults moulting. We were lucky to see a few Weddell seals sun baking here and there on the sea ice and also a couple of Weddell seals in the water. It was a fantastic day and one of the best I have had down here. We didn't get back to Mawson until about seven thirty and by the time we packed up and cleaned up we were all very cold, tired and hungry.

Enjoy

Tuesday 4th March 2014

Today we were meant to go boating down to the specially protected area of the Rookery Islands about seventeen kilometres to the west of Mawson to do and audit on the Adélie penguins and to do a debris audit. After doing ARPANSA I spent a couple of hours getting things ready to go, and after while waiting for the wind to drop below fifteen knots, I worked on my monthly report in my room. I didn't have faith in the wind dropping today and thought tomorrow would be a much better day and sure enough the trip was called off around one o'clock. Late in the afternoon I checked out conditions on the radio and 10m (28 MHz) was going nuts and I made many contacts all over the world.

Monday 3rd March 2014

Today I was the cook and the slushy which is quite a task for twenty one people. For smoko I cooked some sausages, baked beans and and toasted ham? and cheese sandwiches. The meat was sort of a red colour and I had no idea what it was and there were quite a few complaints but what can I do. The meat was sliced and cryo vaced and I have no idea how old it was. For lunch I put out the usual disgusting spread and tried to jazz it up as best I could. For dinner I made Nasi Goreng and Mee Goreng, salt & pepper squid and stir fried vegetables and for sweats I made rice pudding.

I thought the Mee Goreng came up OK, but some people were horrified that I used two minute noodles. I was disappointed with the Nasi Goreng as our rice cooker blew up and I had to cook it in a pot and it turned out quite sticky. I didn't have a lot of the ingredients either and I had to use powdered eggs which are crap and I had to substitute the bok choy with purple cabbage. Everyone woofed it down and I received a lot of good comments but personally I was disappointed as I know I can do a lot better it I had the ingredients. I was on my feet and working nonstop from sunrise to sunset and was totally buggered when I finished.

Sunday 2nd March 2014

After a nice sleep in and some brunch I vacuumed my room and the bath room for the last time as we are not allowed to use vacuum cleaners any more to save on fuel. I will break the rules and make sure I vacuum my room before the new winter expeditioner moves in. Conditions on the radio were great today and I spent about four hours on air and worked about sixty contacts from all around the world. Later I went for a walk around east arm to check out what was happening and didn't see any wildlife at all except for the baby snow petrol I have been keeping an eye on for the past several weeks. Dam this sea ice.

Lately I have fallen so far behind with my blog and I am really lacking in motivation. Everybody is in a going home frame of mind and the new fuel savings measures are taking a toll on everyday life. It's way over time for efficiencies to be introduced down here but if you start affecting the standard of living down here no one is going to want to come down here. This is our home for a year. It's not like a camping or field trip where you don't mind going without things for a while, this is our house and home and we need our comfort.

Saturday 1st March 2014

For my Saturday duties today I had to do the gash run on my which took me quite a while. All the kitchen waste stored in the sea container had me dry reaching while I was loading it all in the ute and again while I was unloading it in Warren. While down at Warren I saw a seal and we had a bit of a chat while he swam about around the sea ice. When I got back to the red shed poor old Steve was on his hands and knees scrubbing the floor in the foyer with a scrubbing brush. It was his sixtieth birthday today. What sort of mongrel would do that to someone on their sixtieth birthday? I would have given him the day off.

Mid afternoon I went down to the transmitter building but conditions were not so good, but I still managed to make a few contacts. After dinner a birthday cake was presented to Steve and we celebrated his birthday up in Klub Katabatic. When they put on Footrot Flats (Steve is a Kiwi); Luc, Geoff and I made our way to the cinema to watch a few docco’s.

Before

After

Homeless beggar or castaway?