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This story unfortunately missed yesterday's Sitrep, so we'll start with it in today's. Our 3rd Officer, Kat, reckons she was the luckiest Officer of the Watch on the high seas when at 2200hrs on Friday night one of our resident musicians, Chris, wondered onto the Bridge and proceed to play a couple of tunes on his guitar, with the guitar held behind his head no less. Behind Chris through the Bridge windows was a clear moonlit sky out to the starboard side, topped off with an Aurora simultaneously dancing across the sky forward of the ship. Wonder where Chris and his guitar will pop up next?
The ice berg sweep was finalised yesterday when at 1520hrs the Officer of the Watch confirmed that the ice berg a beam of the ship on our starboard side was officially large enough to be declared the winner. We had spotted one earlier in the morning on the horizon, but it was too far away for its size to be confirmed, hence it didn't count. Congratulations to Ben for winning the sweep.
The ingoing Mawson team continue with their emergency response training and yesterday was the first of many "table top" exercise scenarios. The scenario was based on a SAR incident on station - an expeditioner had failed to arrive at a designated worksite and consequently there was concern as to his
whereabouts and ultimately his welfare. The entire team were involved and
the scenario kept all engaged for the best part of three hours. The team discussed initial responses and their practical application, search zones and 'hot spots', SAR alarms and notifications before arriving at the conundrum of searching an expeditioners only private refuge on station, their bedroom. Not quite as simple as it may seem.
With the Mawson team having learnt all they needed to know about potatoes the day before, the "boaties" were not invited back to ERT training and as a precautionary measure, Garry was asked to hand in his Fireman Sam 'jemmy bar' until the training was over. At the end of which he was seen scampering off in the direction of calorie corner, jemmy bar happily in hand again!
As predicted the weather picked up again last night. 8m swells with the odd bigger set rolling through kept things interesting for us. We have got through the worst of that system and things should start to improve as today goes on.
The expeditioner briefing program for the reminder of the week is being finalised today, and planning continues to ramp up as we continue our transit to the Mawson region. By the end of this week we hope to be in the ice and close to, if not in our final operating position.
Cheers,
Deepy 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.