“Bond, James Bond” and “Vodka Martini, shaken, not stirred” have been quoted close to a hundred times during our themed Saturday night. The search and rescue team went out on a quick refresher training and the picture gallery of the week is by Jukka Pirhonen.

Bond, James Bond

After a few weeks of Thursday night drawing sessions featuring charcoal portraits, we tried to reverse course a small bit at Casey this week and let life imitate art for a change. The 50th Anniversary of the Bond film franchise offered us just this opportunity. From Friday night to Monday, “The Odeon” (the small cinema at Casey) continuously played James Bond movies from all five decades.

Having never seen a James Bond movie before, I was surprised to see Roger Moore battling both on skis and later in cars. The fight continued on motorbikes down snowy mountains. Into the water they took this struggle, where angry sharks eventually helped decide a winner. While it was a refreshing change of pace from a 20 hour documentary about the coast of the United Kingdom (yawn), it was clear midway through our first film that we at Casey would have some trouble replicating or even trying to imitate James Bond and his mischief. This challenge though was met head on by most everyone on station, and Saturday night would arrive with a Bond party for the ages!

We had Bond ‘girls’. We had Aaron at the Roulette table, throwing out one-liners like he’d been lining Casino pockets since puberty. Andy was dealing Blackjack in a way that can only be described as unorthodox but still heaps fun. Scotty put together an array of finger foods that Jay Gatsby would have been proud of. Ben (young Swayze) was mixing up cocktails like somebody might tip him, everything from the Bond’s shaken Martinis to Mango daiquiris.

A few of the characters even made an appearance. Most of us tried our hand at being the hometown hero, none other than James Bond himself. Then there was Abrar as “Q”, Lee as Baron Samedi and Scotty as Blofeld. Michael S put his Asian twist on James Bond while Leon put a very masculine twist on SPECTRE agent Fiona Volpe. Ben H required a single wardrobe change to go from Bond girl to Bond because, and I quote, “these high heels are killing me.” His shaved legs may take slightly longer to return to normal.

We gambled (fake money of course) poker chips that could be used for an auction later this year. We ate, we drank and we were merry. James Bond killed the bad guy AND got the girl. Ben H closed up the bar and we settled in for the night. It was the end of another Saturday night celebration, another week on station and 50 years of Bond movie glory. What will we get up to next? I guess you’ll have to stay tuned!

Chad S

Search and Rescue training

This week we had a short search and rescue (SAR) training session. First we packed for some sea ice drilling to measure thickness and a refresher on utilising the float rescue pod.

We headed towards Shirley Island, which is not far from station, travelling on Hägglunds including two quad bikes that followed closely. When we arrived it wasn’t long to successfully operate the floating rescue pod and called it a day before the impending weather approached.

Mick W.

Picture gallery of the week

This week’s picture gallery features photos taken by Jukka Phironen.

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