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It’s been a busy day! With increased swell anticipated we have been keen to complete cargo and get the LARCS aboard tonight , leaving only the helicopters and support personnel on shore tonight.
The two LARC amphibious water craft carried heavy LARC only cargo loads ashore –today interrupted for a period by wind and swell. The heavy loads included an old tractor – which once in the hold was driven to its stowage space – ( something weird about a tractor driving on a ship…).
The priority was then to get the LARC craft lifted aboard the Aurora , which has been completed.
These are the heaviest and largest lifts of this operation, often made difficult by swell and wind. It is testament to the ship’s crew and LARC operators that this was done in a safe and efficient manner.
One helicopter worked sling loads to the ship for several hours today, while a second completed some sling work on island. By day’s end between we have only 3 loads left ashore.
The outgoing wintering crew have just returned to ship for their journey home leaving the new wintering team ashore to start their year.
We have grabbed our opportunity for the day, and as I write wind and cloud have increased with the approach of an expected westerly with cold weather.
The remaining task is to grab the first break in the weather where wind and cloud allow us to retrieve the 3 helicopters and support personnel and were off… which may not be that simple as the weekend forecasts have some interesting weather in the mix, in advance of a deep low we expect on Sunday.
Cheers Don, Simon and Brett
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.