This week at Casey: 2 November 2012

Given the recent outstanding success of the seven month wellbeing program, it was fitting and proper then we celebrated the old fashioned way with drinks after work and a silly quiz. Except this is Casey and it would all be a competition with ranked scores and results filed and labelled A+, A B+ (although this was in fact just the blood groups).

I made everyone wear “something blue” to shake off the winter and the chef and brew master came up trumps with mulled wine and hot snacks. 

Everyone was busy around the facility looking for the most expensive piece of equipment or the most useless reference book as well as several mystery medical items and locating a penguin (on the ceiling in dental). A souvenir from the Russian station fooled most as it looked like half a litre of vodka although it was in fact a bottle of old fashioned saline.

Prizes included a set of mini microbes (for the healthiest adult), four barley sugars (for the biggest loser) and a bag of blue M&Ms for the dental award. The most consistent exercise-effort prize was of course “a backup” pedometer. Everyone then received their files in good humour with all their medical results and a summary of wellbeing progress over winter, with cartoons and comments.

Overall weight loss for the station totalled 112kg, surely an Antarctic record! We topped the evening off with a round of mini golf that had us pitching and putting hysterically around the red shed.

Good health, Casey, you’re all incredible!

On Saturday our winter seclusion came to an end with the arrival of a Basler aircraft carrying six people. Rich, Mike, Vince and Peter brought their plane (C-GKJB) carrying two exiting winterers from Davis Station, Cathy and Joe. It was a huge day. As well as seeing new people for the first time in seven months, it was the first chance to try out the new ski landing area (SLA) that Jon and Misty had spent the past six weeks preparing. Almost two thirds of the station was at the SLA to see the plane come in and greet the people on it, leaving a skeleton crew on station to handle fire board and emergency responsibilities. 

Everything went off without a hitch and, as all the activity was in the late afternoon, we were soon getting down to the important business of eating a superb meal prepared by Gav (with some help from Jeb) and catching up on all the news from Davis and parts further afield. Joe and Cathy had a chance to find out why Casey is such a better station than Davis and they even left us a present (thanks everyone from Davis for that, we won’t forget).

Early the next morning we were up and about, planning the long flight from Casey to McMurdo that would eventually see Cathy and Joe (and Jeb from Casey) arrive back in Australia. We will see Rich, Mick and Vince again in a few weeks time when the Basler comes back our way. But until then, thanks guys for starting our summer season off in such a positive and friendly way.

We knew our winter had truly ended during the week, not so much when new people arrived but when one of our number had left. Jeremy Browne (Jeb) was heading out early to attend an important engagement in early December back in Australia. He took the Basler flight to McMurdo and from there hitched a ride back to Hobart on the A319 which was the surest way to get him there on time. Jeb was one of our two electricians for the winter. He was also fire chief over summer before leaving that role to spend more time on his primary focus as Station Brewmaster. Jeb was a quiet presence on station over winter, keen to brew new types of beer, share his extensive wine cellar and cook up a storm in the kitchen whenever he was on slushy. He also sported the best beard of the winter. See you back in the real world Jeb!