Amery Angst

One of the big jobs over the summer was the retrieval of a whole lot of data from several sites that are logging temperatures on the Amery Ice Shelf. The Amery Ice Shelf lies between Davis and Mawson (around 250km from Davis). It is basically where the Lambert Glacier (the largest glacier on earth) pushes ice out over the ocean. Think big, flat (apart from the occasional enormous crevasse), white and cold. Think one and a half hour helicopter trip one way from Davis. Big problem (as always in Antarctica) is weather. We need a very long period of really good weather in order for the helicopters to get us out there. We needed 12+ hours at each site to download all the data logged over the last year, which meant we needed a really good 24 hour weather window to make the trip worthwhile. Our beloved forecasters did their best, but they had very little data from the region to go on. Basically I got all the gear together ready to go (heaps of it - lots of electronics gear and a whole lot of camping equipment organised by our FTO, Tim) weighed it and then sat around for days wondering when we were gonna get the OK....
Eventually we got a small window and so we decided to cache a lot of the equipment at the edge of the ice-shelf on Sansom Island. We sent two tradies (Neville the chippy and Hughsey the plumber) from Davis with the helicopters, ad they absolutely loved it! The coastline was spectacular there and back. I had seen the coast as far as Zhong Shan, but their descriptions left me champing at the bit to get on with it and get out to do this work. It was to become (another) pretty serious case of “hurry up and wait”!