During this summer, between mid-November and mid-January, we will be visited by a total of ten tourist ships. These include Heritage Expedition’s Spirit of Enderby and Silversea's Silver Discoverer, which include Macca in their subantarctic island cruises of around 14 days duration. This week, both ships have visited, so it has been a busy time.
Weather permitting, the visits comprise a day at Sandy Bay and a half day at station plus touring the isthmus, and a boat cruise past the king penguin colony at Lusitania Bay. Rangers Chris, Andrea and Mike run the visits for TASPAWS, and each visit several of the Australian Antarctic Division expeditioners volunteer to act as additional tourist guides. Again weather permitting, the guide party overnight on the ship off the island in between the Sandy Bay and isthmus visits. This week, chef Benny, senior expedition mechanic Pete, and field training officer Ian assisted Chris and Andrea as tour guides for the Spirit of Enderby visit carrying about 60 tourists. Also visiting as a tourist on this trip was former (many times) station leader Jeremy Smith and partner Greta. Jeremy was station leader here in 1996 and 2010, as well as multiple times on the continental stations. Jeremy, a botanist, was delighted to see the post-MIPEP rabbit eradication program vegetation recovery on the island.
Spirit of Enderby also brought us a new station doctor Malcolm, to replace our winter doctor Meg. Meg has been with us since our arrival in March, so there were many fond farewells. Spirit of Enderby also brought us a new communications technician Robert to replace Ryan who left in October. Also departing were human impacts remediation project staff Lisa, Robbie, and Ben, and Bureau of Meteorology project staff Evan, Krzyzstof and Cyril, who have been installing an upgraded hydrogen generating electrolyser. Cyril is another many-times AAD expeditioner (nine winters and multiple summers), who was “dragged out of retirement” for this short summer project. Cyril’s (possibly) last ever rostered slushy day on an Antarctic station required a photo (below). But never say never, Cyril!
