During the blizzard we had to melt water for drinking and washing, which meant a trip outside into the weather with a spade and collection of buckets and pots to fill up with fresh snow. Walking around in a blizzard is a lot of fun because your are constantly battling to keep upright against the wind, sometimes grabbing into the hut guy wires or using your ice axe to stop yourself being blown down an icy slope. Just outside the hut is a large blizztail (a pile of snow deposited in the down wind side of the hut) from where I filled up some pots and bukets with snow, then brought them back inside to melt on the stove. Most of the time filling up the pots with snow came from debating who's turn it was to get out of their nice warm sleeping bag and get dressed up... needless to say Miss Pike kept her two sleeping bags warm that day ;0)

The next day when the blizzard had passed, we went outside to find the quads almost covered in snow. Luckily we had tied them down together so they were not blow away as has happened in the past! Getting the quads going again takes a bit of coaxing because the air intake and filter can often get filled with snow, and the only think that enables them to keep running is to remove the seat and take the lid off the air filter box, as well as cleaning all the snow out of the radiator and fan.

After we had packed up and cleaned up the hut we headed back to Casey for a quick bite to eat and then went on to Wilkes to continue and finalise our field training.

Casey has some interesting weather patterns compared to Mawson and Davis. The most noticeable weather pattern is the very sudden change in wind speed and visibility. We experienced a few days where the wind and sky was low and clear then in the space of only 20 minutes cloud had rolled in and there was blowing snow at near blizzard conditions. On the 13th of November, the wind increased from 30kph to 120kph in only 20 minutes! this kind of weather change is very dangerous especially if you are out in the field on sea ice or in a boat on the water.

On the 8th of November, Griff (Casey radio operator), David & Trevor started to build 3 igloos on a small ridge opposite the station and with a good view over Brown's Bay. The idea of building an igloo hadn't occured to me before so I did a 'copy cat', begining with a bit of research on the web about how to build an igloo. My research told me that the traditional way was to make the wall an inward facing spiral that slowly closed up the roof. Luckily the snow was very hard and packed so that all that was required for carving it up and making blocks was a small saw and a shovel. I started a 'quarry' making flat bricks and shaped the edges with the saw. Each brick faced a little bit more inwards than the previous one and to stop it falling in, I carved it so that it lent on the adjacent one.

I worked on the Igloo in the evenings after tea. There was sufficient light to work to about 10pm before the wind picked up and my hands & gloves got too covered in ice.

I found building my igloo quite a pleasurable experience, 'Zen Therapy', because it allowed me to think about all sorts of things. It's a bit like chopping wood, a method of venting frustrations and also thinking at the same time while releasing the frustrations from being at Casey waiting for the aircraft to arrive.

In addition to building an Igloo I worked on testing the Penguin Population Camera to make sure that it could withstand Antarctic Blizzards up to 200kph or more. Luckily we had a decent blizzard that topped out at 160kph. My method of holding the camera down to the rocks with red rock mats seemed to work well. I also managed to get a sequence of pictures that I made an interestling timelapse out of.

Field testing the Penguin Population Camera in 90 knot (160kph) winds

As I mentioned before, all the people heading for Davis & Mawson were waiting at Casey for the two new CASA 212 aircraft to arrive. Unfortunately, these aircraft were nearly brand new and had never flown in Antarctica before. Neither had CASA (the Australian Civil Aviation Authority) ever flight certified an aircraft for flying in these conditions. So, desipise the best intentions of having the aircraft arrive on about November 1, there was going to be a long saga of delays and more delays that would result in us taking 64 DAYS or 2 months! to reach Mawson from Hobart. The delayed arrival of the aircraft was a large disruption to the 04/05 summer program because there were so many people and scientific programs that were told that they would be able to depend on being able to travel between stations and out into the field.

The delayed arrival saga was well known within in the Antarctic community but nothing of all the faults was reported to the press. The only press reports or TV blurbs from the AAD were all glowing and positive saying that 'aircraft had arrived for science'... nothing about the huge delay and not to mention the large cost in wasted salaries and all the associated logistics. So just in case you thought everything went rosy in the AAD don't believe everything you hear on TV or in the newspaper or in an AAD press release.

Wednesday November 17 - 2004