The start of this past week reminded us why Davis is often referred to as ‘The Riviera of the South’. We took advantage of the favourable weather conditions to do a few iceberg cruises after work and a science trip to Kazak Island.
Pleasantly the start of the boating season has coincided with the start of the ‘sunset season’, and whilst the sun is not setting for very long before rising again, we are getting some wonderful skies.
We celebrated Chinese New Year on Saturday night, to welcome in the Year of the Black Water Dragon. This is considered, under the Chinese Horoscope, to be a particularly auspicious year.
Continuing the international theme, we received a visit from the nearby Indian station that is under construction in the Larsemann Hills. The group included the Voyage Leader of the 31st Indian Expedition, Dr Rajesh Asthana, from the resupply ship Ivan Papanin; the first Station Leader of the soon-to-be-occupied Bharati Station; along with 23 other expeditioners inlcuding the doctor, architect, engineers, scientists and other station personnel. They arrived in two helicopters, one of them a giant Kamov KA32 carrying 21, and a smaller Bell with 4 people! They were given tours around station and, as it was after work, they were able to meet many of our expeditioners.
And finally…
Our Biodiversity team, who have been collecting samples in the Prince Charles Mountains for the past 60 days, returned to station this week. They were very grateful to learn that their return coincided with the Davis water tanks being full and they could have some very long, well deserved showers! Here’s a story from one of the team members, Josh, about a day in the life…
You wake up to a film of ice on the outside of your sleeping bag around your face, and a light snowfall drops in your eyes from the tent walls. If you can be bothered to thaw your baby wipes (by placing the pack under your armpit or against your chest), you have a quick ‘shower’ to remove the sweat and grime of the day before. You pull on your thermals which may have been worn every day for the last ten days or so, trying not to smell them as you do so. You pull more clothes from the depths of your sleeping bag (socks, polar fleeces, down pants, gloves, balaclava, beanie) and put them on with as much haste as possible in the confines of the tent. You slide your feet into boots which may have frozen stiff overnight, and struggle to tie them up with your popsicle fingers. Your nose begins to drip; this will continue all day unless it freezes solid. You release your jacket from its secondary role as a pillow, and envelope yourself in its downy goodness. You emerge from the tent into blinding midday sun reflecting off the ice and snow, and instantly regret leaving your sunnies in the mess tent the night before. You smile, it’s a beautiful day and you’re in a frozen paradise, privileged to see sights few people will ever see in their lifetime.
Squinting, you shuffle towards the mess tent, offering cursory wishes of “good morning”. You probably mention the temperature at least three times, expletives may be employed. A bucket is passed out from the recesses of the mess tent; you grab an ice axe and trudge off to get the first lot of water for the day. This is acquired by hacking away at the ice underfoot, and is a great way to warm up and vent any pent-up emotion. You return to the mess and eagerly await the transition of water from solid to liquid to the beginnings of gas (nevermind the old adage about a watched pot), and down the first of many cuppas for the day. “Hydrate or die” is an Antarctic mantra, and you observe this religiously. You sit with a tube of frozen sunblock under your armpit, eating muesli or porridge as fast as possible before the milk (fresh from the can of powder) freezes to the bowl. You do your dishes with a paper towel, and await your turn at the toilet tent. Morning necessities complete, a lunch (muesli and mars bars, dried fruit, scroggin, Vita-Wheats with Vegemite, Mountain Bread with frozen tuna and pesto) is cobbled together, and water bottles and thermoses are filled from the ever melting/heating pot. You fill your pack, including pee-bottles, sampling gear, and extra warm layers. You pull spiked boot-chains over the blocks of ice masquerading as feet, and stomp around trying to resurrect them. You check VHF radio communication, before your team of two or three heads out across the ice towards the first sampling site.
If, like me, you have an incredibly acute athletic physiology, you begin the eternal battle of sweat management. You remove a jacket. Still too warm. Remove a polar fleece. Remove your micro-fleece shirt. You are now walking in just a woollen thermal top. You unzip the sides of your down pants. Remove your beanie. Your windward ear loses communication with the rest of your body within minutes. You remove your neck warmer and put your beanie back on. Your sunglasses fog up; removing them for a minute or two you walk with eyes wide shut, forgetting that when you put them back on they will have iced up. Your beard begins to freeze solid, and your nose is painfully cold. You pull a balaclava over your mouth and nose; it is rapidly saturated by condensing breath and melting beardicles. The balaclava is pulled back down over your throat, where it quickly freezes solid, useless for the remainder of the day. At least the ice collar blocks the wind. When you finally arrive at the site, perhaps after more than two hours of hard walking (anything over 2–3km/hr is pretty good going in this terrain), you put every single item of clothing back on, hoping to halt the prompt cooling induced by evaporating sweat in a light breeze below −15 °C. Life is good.
You get to work, after a minor argument with teammates over who will wear the nitrile gloves (AKA blue death gloves) to take the sterile soil sample. If you are the (un)lucky one, sample collection is followed by many minutes of stomping around with hands down your pants or in your armpits, cursing every single person remotely connected to the invention and manufacture of such thin, sweat-inducing, heat-conducting instruments of torture. Notes are taken about the site — position, elevation, slope, temperatures (air and soil surface), geomorphology etc. Vegetation is searched for (fruitlessly at Menzies it appears). Quartz stones are overturned in the hope of finding a hypolith (algae, fungi and/or moss taking advantage of the contrasting shelter and light transmittance of the semi-translucent quartz). Flat dark stones are also overturned in the quest for springtails and mites. Nada. Zip. Zero. Nothing. Menzies appears deader than a dead thing. Yet you know there are some tenacious microbes eking out an existence in this sparse soil; you pronounce this fact yet again to an incredulous geologist.
You move on to the next site, sweat management again an issue. You may stop for lunch. A cup of hot Maggi soup. A Mountain Bread roll, defrosted mouthful by mouthful. A Mars Bar which cracks rather than stretches; this brittle failure more reminiscent of a Crunchie bar in the real world. You drink some water, perhaps having to take the ice axe to the mouth of your bottle before the crucial hydration can commence. You walk. You sample. You walk. You sample. It is somewhat of a groundhog day, the monotony pleasantly broken by some of the most beautiful vistas you will ever see. Judgement of distance is a problem; with no trees or anything of recognisable scale it is easy to underestimate the time needed to return to camp, or climb a steep scree. More than one team member has experienced a longer than planned day thanks to Adrian “it’s-not-that-far” Corvinho.
You return to camp tired, sore and hungry; your pack having gained weight via samples throughout the day. Ice is melted and subsequently boiled, tea is drunk. Dinner is lovingly prepared, taking over an hour to concoct, yet disappearing in mere minutes. You are fortunately blessed with a generous food supply and gourmet-quality team mates. The menu may consist of mushroom risotto with lemon pepper salmon steaks, or caramelised onion and sundried tomato sausages with garlic instant mash and peas. You eat well. Tea, Tim-Tams and chocolate follow. Occasionally a splash of port or rum (with crackling glacial ice) rounds off a particularly strenuous or successful day.
Goodnights are offered, along with the mandatory observations/guesses on the temperature (e.g. — “it’s at least minus five million” — A. Corvino, 2011). Semi-ritualistic prayers are offered for the morrow’s return of the sun and banishment of wind. You crawl into your tent, and begin the painful business of undressing. Socks are hung up to dry (and hopefully dissipate some odour). Clothes are stuffed down sleeping bags, and you quickly follow. After fifteen to thirty minutes, feeling returns to your toes. The pain elicits a semi-masochistic pleasure; your feet will be warm again soon. You sleep like a log. You wake up to a film of ice on the outside of your sleeping bag, around your face…
