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Busy people at Macca: work on station

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This week at Macquarie Island: 11 March 2011

Regular training sessions for the various station emergency teams (fire, hospital and search and rescue) are a feature of station work. This week, station fire team chief and Bureau of Meteorology senior observer Will practised his team in the vitally important casualty recovery procedures using BA (breathing apparatus).

The Bureau of Meteorology staff on station are responsible for managing the “clean air lab” which samples and analyses our air here as some of the cleanest air on the planet. Repairs were required this week to the anemometer mast at the clean air lab. Senior diesel mechanic Robby assisted by fabricating a component on his lathe, and Will was then able to climb the mast to fit the component.

One fact of life here on Macca is the absence of roads and any form of mechanical transportation around the island, except when helicopters are here, normally only over resupply. Except our inflatable rubber zodiac boats! Our IRB’s are an invaluable way of moving heavy items of any sort around the island, as the only alternative to lugging on foot - not to mention an enjoyable way to get out and about! This week we operated a two boat trip to Sandy Bay and Green Gorge in order to move a load of assorted heavy materials between station and the two field huts.