Bad News

After knocking off of my fuel line duties at 8am, I helped out unloading a couple of containers of food (mostly frozen meat and a lot of cheese that looked like it was fairly high quality stuff). Upon coming back in and having lunch, I found the personal effects had been unloaded from the boat and so began moving into my room. Not long after this, Ray (the supervising scientist pictured in my last blog) knocked on my door with a worried look on his face. I immediately assumed that the other Engineer who should have been showing me the ropes over summer was heading home. This proved to be a fair assumption, but Ray explained further that Dave (the other Engineer) was going to be put under a general anesthetic in a few hours, and have his leg set in plaster. So I had a few hours to talk to Dave and absorb as much of his wisdom as possible before he went into surgery. I was surprised that I coped so well with this news, but the prospect of doing the work of two engineers over the summer was a daunting challenge. Anyway, I had a really good chat with Dave, while other wintering expeditioners ran around us packing his stuff up ready to head back to Australia. It was quite surreal and more so considering lack of sleep had left me a little drained. I was very pleased to get a break by the time 4pm came around and Dave was whisked off into surgery, but I hoped that we wouldn't be too groggy in the morning and I would be able to get some more info out of him then when was a bit fresher!