Never a dull moment!
4 December 2007
Craig Hilder soon after arrival
Photo: C. Hilder
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We flew from the ship to the station by helicopter, a trip of about 80 km, an amazing experience. We could make out penguins and seals on the sea ice below, and as we saw the Red Shed at Casey I thought 'Wow! We really are out in the middle of nowhere!'
We had a couple of days changeover so had time for a good briefing from the departing plumbers. Working as a plumber here is very different to working in Australia. It is more like looking after your own little town.
There are 2 wintering plumbers and we look after the waste water treatment plant, the pumps, boilers and the incinerator, plus all the bits and pieces you associate with plumbing like water supplies, toilets and so on.
One of our daily jobs is to pump about 5 000 litres of fresh water from the melt lake behind the station. This works out at about 150–200 litres per person per day.
Since arriving, we have also installed Hi Fog fire suppressant systems in the emergency vehicle shelter and the main power house. I also spent a day at the Wilkins runway doing maintenance work on the incinerator toilets in the ablutions block. Time just seems to fly.
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It is true what they say about the 'A' factor – everything really does take 5 times as long to do as it would back home. You need to be innovative as you cannot just go out and buy spare parts or call in a technical expert. We work a lot with other tradies, especially the sparkies (electricians). For example, I spent yesterday welding a frame for the refrigeration unit the sparky was installing in the Green Store.
As the plumber, I am also the Casey Waste Management Officer, which involves amongst other things twice weekly burns in the incinerator.
Aerial of Casey station
Photo: C. Wilson
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There are a few recreational facilities here including a gym, spa and sauna. In fact the station is really very comfortable. The community life has been pretty good, though being with the same people day in and day out at work, having a beer at the bar, watching a movie and at meals is very full-on. The only place you can go to be on your own is your bedroom, but we have a good crew and I doubt there will be any problems.
All of us take part in station duties – I have worked twice as slushy now in the kitchen, washing up and helping make the bread. I am also a member of the Fire Team and the Search and Rescue Team, which involves ongoing practice and training.
I brought my guitar down with me as did a couple of others, and when we have the time, we would like to get a station band going, which should be fun.
The best experience so far has been the field training off station. We spent 3 days out on the quads, learning basic survival skills, sleeping overnight outside in our bivvy bags, riding quads and learning to use the GPS system.
One day, when we were doing some ice core sampling to see if the sea ice was safe for quad travel, a beautiful big emperor penguin waddled up to say hello. It stood and looked at us a for a few minutes and then wandered over to look at our bikes before deciding we weren't very interesting and off it went. That was a magic experience!
The challenges? Well I guess the depths of winter could affect people's moods. I saw this happen in the UK a few years ago, but winter is still a long way off and we have a lot of work to do before then.
For more information see also:
- Casey station
- Wilkes Runway
- Jobs on station: plumber
- Waste management
- This Week in Antarctica stories:
