World Tour of East Antarctica

There is an experiment that is run by the AAD at the Chinese station Zhong Shan. Zhong Shan is located in another bit of Antarctica that is not covered by ice and now - the Larsmann Hills. Luckily, I am the one tasked with keeping the experiment running, so it means I got on the first helicopter trip down to the Zhong Shan base. This first trip meant a little bit of work for me at Zhong Shan, but there was a lot of diplomatic stuff to do too. The Larsemann Hills is a very popular little area for putting bases. There are a lot of freshwater lakes, and a reasonable, relatively close, ice runway. Unfortunately there is a lot of multi-year sea-ice there, so it is very difficult to re-supply by boat. Anyway, India have started looking at setting up a base there (they have semi-permanently erected shelters known as “melons” and “apples”) on an island south of the other bases in the Larsemann's. The other bases are all within 1km of each other and include Law/Racovita base (joint Australian/Romanian), Zhong Shan (Chinese) and Progress II (Russian). There is also a former Russian base (Progress I) a little further inland. Anyway, we got to see all of them in one day thanks to the Davis Helicopters (the other bases don't have Helicopters - I wonder how they get anything done...).
Anyway, here is a picture of our first stop - the new Indian base. I guess you can see why they are called melons! The circular ones are called apples for similar reasons. After finding no-one was home at the Indian Base (no-one seemed to know when or if they were planning to be there this summer), we headed on to the Law Base.We had a quick stop at Law. One of the apples there had been completely destroyed, and had been blow throughout the surrounding hills. We did our best to clean up the mess, but we were running relatively short on time as we had to get to Zhong Shan at a reasonable hour (I think they are on Beijing time!). It is a bit nerve-racking rocking up in Helicopters to a foreign base (at that stage they had no re-supply, so we were the first visitors they had (apart from the occasional Russian) since the Australians visited on a winter traverse. They all seemed very happy - I guess they must have had a good winter. After the obligatory cup of Chinese tea, I got on with my geeky work stuff, while everyone else got a tour of the station. After the completion of our work we were treated to some very good food and were plied with some of their beer, (called REEB - they get it for free as the brewery basically sponsors Chinese Antartic Research Expeditions - CHINARE). I had a couple of beers, but figured it was best to keep well and truly sober, so when offered more I attempted to explain the great Australian tradition of “one for the road”. They laughed as I tucked a can into my jacket and headed off (on foot) to Progress II, so I think they got it. Here's a picture of Ray and myself with our Chinese counterparts at Zhong Shan). Finally we got to he Russian base. We were vary wary walking in, as we had received no response to our fax (the only method of communication we have with the Russians) so had no idea if they knew we were coming or not. The Russian station was very quiet, but the workers (busy completing an impressive workshop come power-house). We were finally approached by a magnetometer scientist who spoke quite good English. He as very apologetic and informed us that the Russian Station leader was still in bed unwell. We offered our doctor from Davis who had come with us, but were informed that they had two doctors already at Progress and that the illness was simply due to it having been the Station Leader's birthday the previous day!Anyway, we were shown around by the Russian's, who were remarkably good natured about us rocking up out of the blue! They keen to tell us about their station and their lives back in Russia, which was really quite amazing. Eventually the Station Leader joined us and we had a Russian beer and a bit of vodka (some had more than others) before completing our tour and hopping back in the helicopters ready for home. It seemed to me that our arrival may have marked the end of what was probably a fairly emotional winter at the Russian base, after one of their communications technicians died of heart failure during the year. There seemed to be a lot more smiles as we waved goodbye than there had been when we arrived. Perhaps they were just happy to get rid of us meddling Australians...As we returned to station, the pilots buzzed the station buildings at the Station Leaders request and we walked into the bar with a couple of slabs of REEB much to the delight of some of the summer tradies, who finished it all at lightning pace! It was a phenomenal day. I have to stop and think sometimes about just how incredibly lucky I am to be here experiencing all this!

Saturday Night Dinners

Given that it is somewhat difficult to pop down to a cafe or pub when you are living on an Antarctic Station, it is common to run a special event of a Saturday Night. Often these take the form of Saturday Night Dinners - Where the chef makes a little extra effort, and we put out table cloths, block the windows (it is light 24-7 over summer, so the candles on the table would seem a bit superfluous if we didn't do this) and everyone has pretty much a sit-down restaurant-style meal. With almost 60 people on station it is a big job for the chef. People are rostered on for Saturday duties (helping out and cleaning up around the station) and normally this includes one or two extra people to help in the kitchen (along with those who help out anyway just 'cause they are nice). I was rostered on to help setting up for the dinner, so set the table fairly meticulously and put on some smart black pants and white shirt and went around trying to set a fairly high bar for whoever was rostered on to do it next time. I even grabbed a pepper grinder and went around to all the (very closely packed) tables asking if people wanted cracked pepper with their salmon or steak. It was also a bit of a Birthday celebration for Clare (one of our Comms Operators - later known as the golden voice of Davis radio). Anyway, a good time was had by all, and I got plenty of compliments for going the extra mile with the whole waiting on tables thing.

Zolotov Is

Now quad trained and ready to go, we took off with Tim, Didier and Dave (the pilot now stranded at Davis waiting for a plane to fly!) and headed to the penguin rookery on Zolotov Island, near the Sorsdal Glacier to the south of Davis station. One of the main reasons for this trip was to check sea-ice conditions in areas where it traditionally melts out early. It was great fun belting along on the quads. Next to the Glacier, the sea-ice was like wet glass! It was impossible to keep the quads straight, I am not sure how they managed to gather any momentum with he wheels having so little traction. Occasionally you come across things that have the unfortunate ability of providing a lot of friction very quickly. Tide cracks around 30cm wide were pretty common, as were small bands of blown snow that sit on the ice (kind of like small Sastrugi). If you hit one of these while you were side-ways, you would know about it! Anyway, we got to see a fair bit of the country to the South of station, a whole lot of penguins and (by Antarctic standards at least) a small glacier. Here's a pic showing a whole lot of Adelie Penguins on Zolotov, with the Sordsal glacier in the background. Riding quads on sea-ice along the edge of a glacier - only in Antarctica!

Field Training

I was lucky enough to be prioritised for early field training. This is good because it means I will be allowed out in the field sooner rather than later, and that we get to train on the quad bikes that are used to get around Davis Station when the sea-ice is thick enough. It was great to be kitted out with all the gear and head off for a good look around the Vestfold Hills. The crew were a pretty mixed bunch (as per usual at Antarctic Bases), but included 2 weather forecasters, one fixed wing pilot, the station Doctor and myself. It was fantastic! The quads make it easy to cover distance really quickly. We belted through the bergs that get stuck fast in the sea-ice to the north of Davis. There was heaps of penguins and the occasional skua to keep us company. Our field training offficer (FTOs are renowned for their vanity) taught us all how to look really good simply by carrying an ice axe. Michelle (one of the forecasters) managed to tip one of the quads over on a bit of steep rifted sea ice. Here is a link to her blog on the topic: how to roll a quad bike. We ended up staying the night in our bivvy bags not far from Bandits Hut. I had my first antarctic snow-cone and spent half the night tying to get a photo of a snow petrel (see above). Also, here's a little picture of me beginning to look a little bit scraggy, but sill very cool, with the aid of my trusty ice-axe.

Gardner Walk II

The second time I went to Gardner was with Didier, who has spent the winter at Davis as the LIDAR physicist (I will explain about the LIDAR in another post sometime), and he was an excellent guide. It was a fantastic evening and we set out from around 10pm to have a look around and take some pictures while the sun was low in the sky. It was quite fantastic, with the possible exception of climbing down a very steep guano covered slope to get to a little bit of ice clinging to the far side of the island. Anyway, the picture at the start is of some nesting Adelie Penguins and the bright colored stuff in the background is the buildings of Davis Station. And here is a panorama (including Dider) taken on the far side of Gardner.

Sea Ice

I had better explain a bit about sea-ice, so people understand a bit about what we are walking around on. When it gets cold enough (below -1.8 degrees) for long enough, the salt water in the polar regions freezes from the top down. Firstly, "grease ice" appears on the surface (some is visible around the bits of solid ice in the photo above). It is so thin, it actually bends without breaking as waves go past. It looks like a darker or lighter patches on the water, depending on what angle you are on. This then turns to "frazzle ice", with sugary crystals of ice floating on-top of the water. Often as the ice becomes thicker, wind and wave action separate the ice into round flat chunks, called "pancake ice" (see blog entry here). Finally the whole thing clumps together and freezes solid to form true sea-ice. As he ice becomes thicker, it effectively insulates the water below from the cold air above, and the rate of growth slows. Eventually the growth almost completely stops at around 1.7 to 1.8 metres. According to our AAD field manual, 200mm of ice is OK to walk on, 400mm of ice is OK to drive quads on, and 600mm of ice is OK to drive the tracked vehicles (Hagglunds) on. The ice we walk over to get out to Gardner Island is called "fast ice" because it is attached fast to land. It is really solid ice, but continually develops cracks at the land/sea interface due to tidal action (tide cracks). Now it is melting (degrading from above) and rotting (degrading from below), care needs to be taken crossing it. You occasionally fall through melted sections to a depth of around 30cm, so it is a good idea to wear water-proof boots! This pic shows some of the melt pools on the surface of the fast ice near Gardner Island.

Gardner Walk

While the sea-ice is in, it is only a 3km walk from Davis to Gardner Island, where there is a large Adelie penguin rookery. We were allowed to head out there, provided we took someone ho was field trained with us. So one morning a small group of us cornered our field training officer and got him to take us out there. It was fantastic. The sea ice is pretty weird to walk on and very slippery in places, but at a measured thickness of 1.5 metres it was pretty much bomb proof! We got to Gardner with few worries. Our group comprised Martin (Met. Tech), Tim (Field Training Officer), Bri (Met Forecaster), Kane (Chippy), Spence (Plumber) and Myself. Once we got out there we started photographing the penguins as they came up to us. Eventually we all were quietly laying on the snow and were pretty much surrounded by the curious little birds. They seem almost fearless. They are keen to get within about a metre of people, but are then wary of going any further. Here's a photo of one of the birds stopping to have a look around as it passed between Martin and myself.
Basically it was great to get out and away from station to see real antarctic stuff even if it was for only three hours. The walk was good excercise and good practice at getting around on the sea-ice with and without boot-chains and ice-axes. Here's a final picture of us heading back, with a vague but discernable ice-halo forming around the sun.