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The records keep falling! After leaving Davis on Sunday at
around 1330 we passed the finish line off Mawson at 2137 on Monday
night, making for a 32 hour 7 minute transit! Smashing the previous 36
hour passage of the MV Amderma last season. The perfect weather, calm
seas and absence of the ice pack made for a perfect track all the way to
Mawson. This was done on one engine all the way with no increase in fuel
usage at a rate of around 12.5 knots, just a perfect alignment of
conditions. A big thanks to lads in the engine room, who kept the steam
up to the boiler as well for the entire time! Paul, Don, Andy, Wayne and
Alan in the Engineering department keep the propeller turning, the
lights burning and the Brascos churning, are the behind the scene people
who really keep the ship going so that we can achieve what we need to
achieve. Fruit buns all round!
Further to yesterday's late breaking news, we had the pleasure of a
close passage along the Lars Christensen Coast. Highlights along the way
included, the Murray and Scullian monoliths jutting out of the icescape.
This is a very rare sight indeed as the Aurora usually transits much
further to the north to avoid the ice pack. The Murray Monolith is a box
shaped set of geological features that rise 243 metre into the air,
Scullion is a cresecent shaped feature rising even higher into the air
at 419 metres. We passed about 15 nautical miles to the north of both of
these features and even at this distance they looked spectacular.
Apparently the Scullion Monolith is a natural amphitheatre that is home
to hundreds of thousands of birds.
After the pleasure of our cruise across the Fram Bank we continued to
encounter a plethora of bergs as we closed Mawson. The real highlight
was a close encounter with a couple of Jade bergs, glowing green in the
sunlight. The current theory is that this colour occurs when the sea
water under glaciers containing algae freezes to the bottom of the
glacier, so when the ice calves off the glacier to form an iceberg, and
then topples over, the green ice of the bottom is exposed. A very simple
explanation and I'm sure to be corrected, but take my word for it the
jade berg is an awesome sight to sea. Rest assured that there were
gigabytes of photos taken yesterday.
On the wildlife front, during our passage the Emperors penguins
continued to come out and watch our progress as well as a couple of
Minkes and a few birds, mainly Southern Fulmars and Snow Petrels.
The passage down Kista Strait off Mawson, was truely sensational last
night. A cloudless sky provided for a spectacular view, with the
addition of a breaching Minke whale it became even better. We were also
greeted by the sight of two of the Penguin monitoring team on
Bechervaise Island giving us a big wave. These guys have been on the
island monitoring the Adelie penguin colony, for a couple of months and
were probably hoping that we might send a boat across to pick them up,
as they haven't enjoyed the comforts of a shower for a while. But alas
we were only poking our nose in to Kista Strait this time and sounded
the ship's horn and turned around and went out to deeper water to spend
the night. Today we intend to enter Horseshoe Harbour and moor up to
commence our resupply. This will take a big effort to conduct this
evolution and will involve all of the ship's crew, watercraft operators
and the folks on station to make fast the ship's mooring lines to the
bollards around the harbour. This should take us about two hours to
complete and then we are into it.
On the science front, Andrew, Theo and Callum, our resident Upper
Atmospheric Science team, reported the sighting of Noctilucent clouds,
Andrew writes:
I watched a very nice display of noctilucent clouds during the night. As
far as I'm aware, this is the first genuine sighting of this phenomenon
from Mawson. Noctilucent (or 'night shining') clouds lie at a height of
85km, and consist of tiny ice particles that scatter light from the sun.
They are very rarely seen at these latitudes.
What can I say, another first for Voyage 3!
On the dessert front, Kyle probed the wire last night with a classic
coconut and macadamia nut Florentine, but Ken repelled the attack with a
sensational baked apple stuffed with fruit and custard hand grenade. If
the Florentine was just the start, this war is about to get hot!
At the moment we are offshore in Holme Bay, amongst the icebergs,
waiting for the Katabatic winds that Mawson is famous for, to abate and
allow us to proceed in and undertake the mooring. The Macquarie
Dictionary defines Katabatic '...blowing downhill, as during the night
when air in the upper slopes is cooled by radiation and thus becomes
denser.' It comes from the Greek work Katabatikos of or or relating to a
downward motion.
All aboard doing well and chaffing at the bit to get into operations at
Mawson!
Regards
Rob, Simon and George.
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.