Ahhhh. Summer is just about here. What a glorious day. The sun is shining and not quite setting. The (presumably) younger penguins are wandering about like a group of human three-to-five-year-old tykes honking “Alan! Alan!” back and forth to their wayward friends. Curious intrepid little beasties go wandering all over the ice, hill, and dale inspecting everything. They are so happy and if they had human parents, the parents would probably age years trying to keep them from trouble, squawking, “be careful!” as the juveniles hop from rock to rock up the hills, and miles away from the sea.
The nesting sites are a complete contrast, filled with a calming burr of those who have given up on the idea of running around like silly buggers. The noise of the rookery hasn’t started yet, with grumpy old penguins yelling, “get off my yard!” or screeching at skuas as they swoop in to grab eggs and chicks.
Giant slugs of Weddell seals with their summer bodies have returned too. They are laying about in the sun, just hanging out, burning calories, leaving placenta and pups around. Yes, things are happening here at Davis station. Even the humans have come out of their winter doldrums.
A group returned from three and four nights of travel on foot and Haaglunds. Everyone has been getting the last bit of exploration before the sun is up and the ship is here. Maps have been placed directly on the contour lines of gentle snow-covered hills and plotted carefully down on to the ice of Lake Druzhby below. There was even figure skating. Not very good, but done nonetheless. So yeah, the good citizens of Davis station have been decompressing after a year of smashing out projects and maintenance. The hustle of getting ready for resupply and handover has been done without disaster, nor major problems. Even Hamish, the training dummy, has got his boots back on.
Hamish may possibly never achieve the international fame and multi-station popularity of “Stay”. Regardless, he will have a name patch (Director, training and mischief), which is on the Nuyina to be sewn onto his jumpsuit. No doubt it will be an educational setting, as part of suture training for the lay surgical assistant handover. In fact, I think Hamish will need to make an appearance at Nina’s for one more last night before the Nuyina arrives. And that brings us to the Nahyeahnah Nuyina.
This season she has started out great – science achieved, cranes working, strikes averted, cargo balanced, chock full of bright-eyed scientists, aviation ground support folk, and of course, the real heroes of keeping science alive in Antarctica, tradies. But she is struggling through the ice this week. Not because she can’t break ice, but because there is so much snow 80 km off station that she rides up onto a big poofy mattress and can’t crack the 1.7 m ice below. But, she is making headway. Maybe she will be here tomorrow. But for us that means one last night at Nina’s for us.
That’s the news here at Davis, the tropical paradise of the Antarctic, the ‘Riviera of the South’ where the women are strong, the men are good-looking, and if we had children here, they would be above average.
Dr Peter Rizzo
