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Merry Christmas from Nuyina although we are so busy out here that it was 60 minutes before anyone actually said "Merry Christmas" to me this morning. Some say that the greatest joy of Christmas comes from watching children's faces as they open their presents. Here on Nuyina, we've had to settle for the joy on Brad's face as the refuelling deployment trials in the River Derwent were successfully completed yesterday.
After packing up, we moved out into Storm Bay to the acoustic test site south-west of Betsey Island. Early this morning, a hydrophone (underwater microphone) was switched on and lowered to the sea floor 25 metres below the vessel. We are now spending the day doing passes over the hydrophone with the ships complex propulsion system configured in different modes so that we can establish exactly how much acoustic noise comes from the vessel itself. At the end of the day, we'll collect the hydrophone so that we can download the data for analysis.
For each 15 to 20 minute pass over the mooring, we all have to be quiet so that we are not adding to the vessel noise. We have to keep our voices down, be very careful not to slam doors and remember not to eat crunchy potato chips from a bag.
Santa didn't touch down on the helideck last night but his main elf did leave a little offering at cabin doors. We are hoping Santa will go around again and find us before the clock strikes midnight on Nuyina. Tomorrow has been declared "Nuyinamas" even though we still have a big day of work ahead of us.
Lloyd & Justin
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.