This week Nick has supplied us with two of his original cartoons. One is a humorous representation of the elephant seals that are now arriving at Davis in numbers and can be seen playing in the water from station.
The second cartoon is another cryptic cartoon that I hope you can work out, with the answer in next week’s station news.
The answer to last week’s cryptic cartoon was “AGSO” which means Air Ground Support Officer. The clue was an amalgam of agriculture and sewing.
The Antarctic is a very harsh environment at the best of times. It is the highest, driest, windiest and coldest continent on Earth. So constructing buildings and having the building withstand the harsh conditions takes a lot of planning and an understanding of the environment.
To maintain the buildings and structures in top conditions requires ongoing maintenance, so when the harsh conditions stripped the paint of the “mushroom” bolts on the living quarters it was time to repaint them. The mushroom bolts are normally green but the conditions stripped them of their colour, so a quick coat of Antarctic green soon fixed that and everything looked like new again.
Emergency Management Training (EMT) is a large part of station life. It is not possible at Davis to call a fire truck or an ambulance in the event something has gone wrong. Throughout an expeditioner’s training schedule in Hobart, EMT is an ongoing and essential function and it is important that those new skills are not lost; therefore regular EMT training continues at station. Nearly weekly the winter expeditioners take part in some sort of EMT training or exercise, to not only maintain their skills but to actually improve on them.
It is one thing to learn how to tie knots in a mild environment in Hobart; it is a totally different thing to do so in extremely hostile and cold conditions. The same can be said about fire fighting. The station has an EMT roster where every week six expeditioners are rostered to be on standby for an emergency situation like having to rescue an injured expeditioner, a fire alarm or locate a lost expeditioner.
Davis Station is situated in the Vestfold Hills and is in the unique position that in the nearby Larsemann Hills other foreign nations have build their Antarctic stations. The Russians, Indians and Chinese all have stations in the Laresmann Hills and they are about a 40 minute trip in a helicopter away.
Over the summer season when flying is possible, there are often inter-station visits. These occasions are good opportunities for the Davis expeditioners to meet their counterparts and exchange souvenirs and try to get that “keeper” photograph. Last week we had a visit from the Russians in their very impressive KA-32 helicopter which presented a great photo opportunity.
