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Our progress past the big icebergs and through the band of ice outside Davis continued to go well with Captain Murray bringing us up to 'warp speed' once we found open water yesterday afternoon to get us into Davis just after dinner time. We anchored near Hobby Rocks about 1km from Davis about 19:00 last night. Station leader Pete came out in an IRB (inflatable rubber boat) and gave us a talk on the house rules for Davis before heading back in with a barge load of mail, some fresh fruit, his incoming winterers and a group of roundtrippers. These roundtrippers included a weather forecaster (in the hope that good news was one the way) and the moss collecting group who were driven from the wharf to a waiting helicopter and deployed to Watts hut to make the most of the weather window currently forecast. This morning most were up bright and early and waiting at the bunker door in their full antarctic clothing and lifejackets ready to head ashore. Two barge trips later all passengers with work programs were ashore and the ship began transfer of cargo. We hope to finish cargo tonight and move on to water transport while the weather is still ok for water operations. As our weather forecasters had predicted the wind was up this morning and has increased throughout the day, shutting down IRB operations a bit after morning tea time. The Davis post office came out to visit us on the ship today and covers, stamps and postcards changed hands. We are getting a bit more of the taste of Antarctic weather here than we saw at balmy Casey - the temperature today is 4 degrees, however with windchill it is about -17.5 degrees. This is ironic considering that Davis' consistently good weather has earned it a reputation as the "Riviera of the South". At the moment helicopters are working through their task list for the Vestfold Hills area and station based work programs are also progressing well. Many fingers are crossed that the weather continues to hold out for us as one more day would enable us to complete the majority of our program and then retrieve personnel on Friday morning before departing for Mawson. That is the plan - but we all know what happens to plans down here . . . Cheers, Nicki, Rob and Peter.
Map
A map showing Australia and Antarctica. The map shows the journey of one voyage that has occured in the season, with each route highlighted in a distinct colour.