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Yesterday afternoon the discharge of a heavy lift cargo item (the crane) was smoothly carried out thanks to the combined efforts of ship's crew, watercraft operators and station personnel. The lift itself, the transfer by barge and the use of anchor points on the shore along with special barge ramps to enable the crane to be driven off at just the right tidal moment, was preceded by careful planning and toolbox meetings that brought about a two and a half hour turnaround of the entire process. Good lessons have been learnt and will be implemented in preparation for the subsequent two heavy item lifts, one of which (the dozer) was scheduled for this afternoon.
However this morning overcast skies and increased wind speeds were a good cue that today would require a different tempo. General cargo discharge was undertaken this morning, and wind speed averages above our threshold for conducting heavy lifts did not diminish as we might have hoped. Further information provided by our friends at the Bureau of Meteorology confirmed this and this afternoon remained as general cargo operations instead.
So far today, the station suffered a power outage, and later an iceline holding back an approx.. 250mt x 50mt ice floe finally gave way between Molholm and the northernmost of Bailey Rocks as we had expected it might. Drifting onto the ship's bow and then slowly down the portside, it was skilfully manoeuvred out of the way by ship's crew and our barge. What's resupply without a few speed humps..
And tomorrow is another day.
Regards,
James, Anthea & Gemma.
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.