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Ahoy Shipmates,
Another day on passage here on Aurora Australis, over the last 24 hours we have made our best day’s run so far at 308nm. With just on 500nm to go to the ice edge, we should be there sometime Monday. Tomorrow we may be able to get a Basler aircraft from Casey Station to do an Ice Recce to help us find the best route through the pack ice. Fortunately the heavy pack ice in the vicinity of iceberg B9D (a leviathan some 18nm long by 5 nm wide) has moved past the Peterson Banks and should hopefully have left a trail of broken pack behind it which we should be able to negotiate without too much difficulty. The conditions which conspired to lock the ship in the ice during the SIPEX voyage in September and October have remained – the lack of consistent southerly wind appears to be keeping the ice berg field and broken pack ice closer to the continent than is usual. Good news for the ship’s charity, as it doesn’t look as if anyone is going to win the iceberg sweep, we all called it too soon!
Tomorrow is Christmas aboard the ship, as we will be arriving at station probably on Christmas day and we will need to get into work straight away. There is a Christmas Tree in the library with lots of presents, hopefully Santa can make it (he might be on the same early program as Neptune). We all live in hope.
Preparations for resupply are now reaching their final stages, with rosters now settled and fine detail being resolved with the team at Casey.
Until tomorrow, shipmates,
Regards Chris, Leanne, and the V2 Team
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.