Wednesday 26th February 2014

Today was - 6c and a fifty knot blizzard was howling outside. I just didn’t feel like going outside and getting battered on the long trek down to the operations building so I decided to stay in the red shed. I spent a couple of hours cleaning and preparing my spare room (the sewing room) ready to move into when the new winterers arrive. I also spent a bit of time finding some recipes as I will be the cook on Monday. I didn’t want to leave it for the last minute and I wanted to see if we had all the ingredients I will need. I spent a little bit more time on my annual report before getting bored so I spent the afternoon Job hunting as I’m getting a bit concerned about not having anything lined up for when I get back home.

Tuesday 25th February 2014

The day started off very cold and windy with the air temperature down to -10c and a 20 knot katabatic blowing. I spent the morning setting up a new web camera for on the roof of the operations building that will be very useful for helicopter operations during resupply. I have replaced this camera twice already this year as they keep failing due to the cold and static electricity from blizzards. This camera is a different type so I hope it will be reliable. The camera turned out to be a real mongrel to setup but I finally got it working okay.

 

After lunch I climbed up on the roof to see what sort of bracket I will have to makeup to install the camera onto the rotator. Unfortunately some Muppet had installed the cable through a hole in the bracket and then terminated the connector so I couldn’t remove it, so I had to take some dimensions and I will have to make up another bracket to bolt onto the existing bracket. Making up this new bracket took up most of the afternoon and I will have a go at installing it tomorrow if the weather is good.

Monday 24th February 2014

This morning was very cold, about minus eight and a twenty knot katabatic blowing. I went for a walk up to cos-ray to check out west bay. All the ice fall has gone leaving only the huge ice cliffs. There is now a nice ice cave in view. I walked back to the clean air laboratory to check out a cable that needs terminating. I asked the electrician to leave a couple of meters either end so I could terminate it and he has cut it off in the middle of the cable tray. What a Muppet.

I wandered back to ARPANSA and discovered the detector had failed last night so I had to call the guy’s at ARPANSA in Melbourne to help change over to the spare detector. Both our gamma ray detectors are just about kaput and we are struggling to keep them working. We have two new ones due to arrive on V6. At today’s morning meeting we discussed ways to save fuel and were given a list of power saving instructions from Kingston. We have to shut down several buildings, turning off the heat and power, shutting off lights, reducing heating to eight degrees in many building, turning off the spa and many other things. As we are on wind power ninety percent of the time I don’t see how this is going to make much difference at all and will only serve to make our lives miserable. 

After smoko, I went and repaired the hook switch on four Cisco phones and in the afternoon I went and cleaned out the emergency vehicle shelter. (EVS) The fire station was a mess and I don’t think it has been cleaned out in years. As the outgoing fire chief I want to handover a clean station. I filled the whole ute with rubbish and junk I either threw out, burnt or stored elsewhere. During the clean out I found a box with the date 1911 on the side belonging to one of Mawson’s expeditions. There was also another box dated 1975 and I put both of these boxes on display down in the Biscoe hut. There is also a nice dog sledge and lots of other artefacts in there also. After this I was pretty knackered so I knocked off early and had what might be my last spa.

Sunday 23rd February 2014

The blizzard is over and we are back to a twenty knot katabatic. I did the ARPANSA filter change and the building was up to twenty six degrees because I had the rim and infra red heaters on, so I had to leave the door open as the detector had heated up ten degrees and could fail at any time. After, I went back to the red shed for some breakfast, a shower and I did a bit of work on by blog and read the news. Luc gave me a call to see if I wanted to watch a documentary he was just about to put on, so after I put on a load of washing I went up to the cinema and I didn't come out till ten thirty that night.

Even the Skua chicks have died and the birds are starving

Saturday 22nd February 2014

Today was a raging blizzard for most of the day and we are back to snow and bliz tails. After doing ARPANSA, I spent most of the time in my room today looking for jobs and it didn't take very long till I was bored. The guys had band practice in the cinema so I couldn't go and watch a movie. After a bite to eat I went down to the transmitter building and put out a heap of calls. Conditions were very poor and there was no path into Europe but I ended up having a long chat to John in NSW. I went back to the red shed and messed about on my computer until it was dinner time. I arrived ten minutes late and most of the food was gone. After dinner we watched a movie and I went to bed early.

Friday 21st February 2014

This morning when I woke up the ANARESAT had gone off air. There must have been a power outage last night that caused the antenna auto tracking to disengage and the satellite has drifted out of view. It took me a while to drive the huge antenna back until the satellite was within view, and then I could engage the auto tracking to do its search before locking onto the satellite. The satellite we use is only fifteen degrees above our horizon and situated over the equator.

ARPANSA went well today using the main gamma ray detector. At eleven thirty I had another job interview which went pretty well and I might have to do another one next week also. I took some time out to polish up all the bullet casings I have found over the year and then late in the afternoon I worked on my blog to bring it up to date. We were told today we have to start conserving power by shutting down all non essential systems. They are even talking about shutting down the ARPANSA laboratory for the whole year but at the moment it’s all talk and it depends how much fuel they can fly in for next year’s crew. 

Personally I think we need to plan this wisely as turning of all the lights and heaters while we are running on wind power will achieve nothing and only increase the pissoff factor. Even if we manage to save one drum of fuel in the next eight weeks what good is that out of 400,000 litres?

For dinner we had Indian and later I watched a few documentaries with Luc.

So far I have found over sixty bullet casings and projectiles including two 1960 flares, 12 gauge, 303, 30.30, 38 cal and 22 cal

Thursday 20th February 2014

This morning the Katabatic was blowing twenty knots but the wind dropped off to nothing in the afternoon. After sorting through all my emails, I had to swap over the gamma ray detectors in the ARPANSA laboratory as the one I was using died overnight. After ARPANSA I walked over to the variometer building and fixed the problem with the two computers and GPS and on the walk back I had a bad fall walking across some very slippery ice.

As the wind had died off, I got a ute to finish off cleaning out Dovers Hut. I filled the whole ute with rubbish and took it all to the RTA bin to get rid of it. Now the three old accommodation huts are spotless and let's hope in the future they are kept that way. In the afternoon I went and did the magnetic observations for this week. There was a large disturbance and the variation was all over the place. While there I grabbed as much rubbish as I could carry back to throw in the RTA bin and the rest I will get next week. 

When I got back to the office I was disappointed to see two boats had gone out again and I wasn't notified even though I am one of the coxswains. No one else knew and it was just a select few that went out. By now the water had glassed out and we could have taken three boats and most of the station out berging. 

Before dinner Geoff, Luc and I went out to east arm for a few quiet ones while watching some giant petrol's and skua's flying around. Tonight I was very tired and I did a bit of work on my blog and watched a bit of TV.