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The cooler temperatures we are now experiencing are causing the formation of new ice around the ship. With this in mind the ship's Master moves the Everest north each night at the completion of operations to ensure we are not locked in by the ice.
While we slept this morning the ship started to creep back into the ice ready for us to start operations. In order to make the best of the weather we had decided to start operations earlier taking advantage of a morning with no katabatic winds at Mawson. At the 06:00 morning briefing our ship's based forecaster informed us that the winds at Mawson were 6 knots. Once again we would aim for 4 sorties for the day. However, unlike previous days, we would only be flying cargo inwards to Mawson as we had received the high priority Return to Australia, RTA, cargo over the previous days. We had hoped to send cargo via sling load, however due to the increased distance to Mawson it was apparent it would be more efficient to carry cargo internally.
At 09:05 the helicopters were in the air once again in bound for Mawson with station food supplies. On deck teams of expeditioners assisted moving frozen food and dry goods out of containers into cage pallets under the guidance of the Davis chef. These were then taken to the back area of the deck to where the Voyage Resupply Coordinator and her helpers then broke these down into loads for the upcoming helicopter flights. In the afternoon it was time to move containers around on deck as we had completed the discharge of cargo and back loading of a container with RTA. By mid-afternoon the container change out had happened and we now have access to another container from which to build loads from.
At 16:30 the helicopters both landed on the MPV Everest and by 17:30 they had been secured for the evening. After 4.5 days of flying we have moved a total of ~ 7.6 tonnes of cargo to Mawson and have received 3.1 tonnes of RTA. Currently we are heading north out of the denser ice pack for the night and will creep our way back in tomorrow morning to continue with the fly off.
REGARDS: Andy, Jenn and Lauren
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.