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The poor weather continued throughout the day yesterday, and right through the night. We were in an Antarctic blizzard with winds buffeting the ship averaging 60 knots, with the odd higher gusts. We had virtually zero visibility due to blowing snow as well. So no heli ops occurred yesterday at all, due to us getting a real taste of Antarctica when it turns nasty.
This morning it was still blowing at sunrise, but the winds had definitely eased off and there wasn't as much snow blowing around - probably because most of the snow in this part of Antarctica had already settled on the decks of the Aurora Australis. Not long after breakfast conditions had eased enough for personnel to be outside, and the call went out for volunteers to assist in removing the mountain of snow that had gathered on the heli deck and up against the hanger door. Ship's crew and expeditioners all grabbed a shovel and got stuck into the task of shovelling the snow off the deck. It took us about forty minutes to clear it, which was a pretty good effort I think.
Antarctica is an amazing place where you get some amazing weather conditions. We now have clear blue skies, very light winds and therefore we are just about to get our helicopters fired up and get stuck into transferring more cargo ashore. We'll also have 10 of the 12 2013 wintering team returning to the vessel this afternoon so it will be nice to catch up with them all this evening.
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.