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Getting
out and about on the water ..
(part 3 of 3)
Thursday 9th March 2000
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continued
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Coming
right up to the ice cliff allows you to look down into the
water and see the ice below the waterline. This time the water
was very clear and it allowed me to see 1 to 2 metres down.
Occasionally
while I have been working outside, I have heard a sound like
distant thunder. When I first heard it I wondered what on
earth it could be, but I quickly realised that the sound had
come from either crevasses opening up just above the ice cliffs,
or from the ice cliffs collapsing into the water. As we were
looking at the cliffs, we came across the remnants of once
such load of ice falling into the water.
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Looking
down into the water below the cliffs.
The
ice below the water is a mixture of the
real ice and the reflection.
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'Bergybits'
is what remains after a chunk of ice collapses into the water.
So
after a few hours out in the boats I had had another look, in a
very different way, at the ice cliffs that I had previously walked
past only a month or so ago.
As
we arrived back I reflected on the view I had had approaching the
station only a few weeks earlier when I had walked back into the
harbour dragging a sledge (see my previous email).
View
Panorama of Mawson Station viewed from the IRB's
The
next day the good weather continued with the air temperature hovering
at about a tropical 5 degrees, and with only a breath of wind -
some of the more keener swimmers decided to go for a swim in the
harbour by the wharf.
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everybody get in and out was a spectacle since the water was
so cold (-1 degrees) that even the keenest swimmer could only
last for 2 to 3 seconds. In fact most of the time in the water
was spent getting in and then out! The water is deep enough
to dive off at the wharf, so Lance gave it a go and I managed
to catch him mid flight. |
Lance
Biddle, taking a dive into the
-2 degree water of Horseshoe Harbour. |
The Mawson Swimming Club L-R, Grant, Leighton,
Wazza, Jason, Nick, Lance, Bob
In
hindsight I should have gone for a swim, but since that everybody
said it felt like being hit by a train I don't think I missed much!
Cheers,
Kym
Back to part 1, part
2
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