Monday 13th May 2013

Today was a blizzard all day so I decided to spend the day inside the green shed removing the infra red heaters from the spare APANSA air filter unit so I can use one to replace the faulty one. This turned out to be an epic job. There were two huge wooden crates and of course the first one I opened was the wrong one. After I got all the screws back into the first crate and had it placed back up high on the shelf I turned to the next one only to discover it had torque head screws. So time to dress up and back out into the blizzard to the ops building to find a torque driver. Finally I find one then dress back up and out into the blizzard across to the green store to start unscrewing the sixty odd screws and after about ten my bloody hand was hurting, so I decided to hack saw the driver in half so I could put it into a battery drill. This proved impossible as it was case hardened and it just hurt my hand even more. In the end I just got angry with it and snapped it in half. Problem solved. Using the battery drill was so much faster. Once open, I then had to use the fork lift to lift the heavy unit out of the crate so I could unscrew the side panels off. Once I had these off then I could get access to the infra red ceramic heaters and remove two of the four, then it was just a simple matter of screwing the side covers back on and then lowering the unit back into the crate, screwing the sixty odd screws back in and then using the forklift to place the crate back up on the shelf. Bloody hell, why couldn't they just give us a couple of spare heater elements?

After all this I went up to the APANSA building and replaced the faulty heater element. After my moon bounce article in Icy news was published I was contacted by staff in Kingston for an interview for the Aurora magazine to write another article. I have also been approached to write an article for Amateur radio magazine and also to write a story to be read out on the WIA radio broadcast so all this is going to keep me busy for a while. It's a pity I don't get paid any extra for all this work.

I  have started reading Georges 1960 diary from his time at Mawson with Bill every lunch time. It is fascinating and very humorous. They sure had it a lot tougher back then but they also had a lot more fun without all the bullshit rules and political correctness that we have to contend with today. It's great reading George and you should try and finish it off and make a book out of it. If I had time I would offer to do it for you. I have already started to print some of your & Bill's photo's to compare the before and after. I find it so interesting to be walking in your foot steps.





George & Bill having a bit of fun on Horse Shoe Harbour 1960. I have to do a sea ice course and carry a radio and survival gear and turn my fire tag just to walk out to the same place.