Davis was like an international airport this week with numerous aircraft from other Antarctic nations dropping in for a visit. Because of its geographical location, only a one hour flight from the Chinese, Indian and Russian Antarctic stations, visits are both welcome and not all that uncommon. To add even more international flavour to the visits, some of our neighbours had foreign aviation assets and crews.
So in addition to visits from our neighbours we also had visits from South African and Ukrainian aircraft and crews. These visits create a fair amount of excitement on station and the Davis expeditioners enjoy giving guided tours of Davis station. On Friday when the Indian Station Leader Venkata Raghavendra K and the Director, Polar Science Programme Dr. S. Naqvi dropped in with a number of their expeditioners, it didn’t take long for a game of backyard cricket to develop.
The visit from the Russian Station Leader Dmitry Serov and his translator Elena was even more special for the Davis Station Leader as he had worked with both in previous seasons.