A spot of boating, regular balloon flights, gardening, and renovations, make for another busy week on the green sponge.

Meteorologists and their flying balloons

We have three team members here — Ali, Marty and George — all working for the Bureau of Meteorology, who have been running science and weather observations on Macquarie Island since ANARE began.

Part of their daily routine is regular balloon launches. Twice a day they release a balloon with a sonde (electronic measuring instrument) underneath it that sends data back to them with constant details of atmospheric temperature, air pressure, humidity, wind speed and direction, until the balloon finally bursts somewhere around 30 km up in the atmosphere.

Once a week they release an ozone balloon which does all of the above and also measures O3 (ozone) to track how the ‘hole’ in the ozone layer is increasing and/or decreasing. This balloon is bigger as it needs to carry more weight and go higher — it burst around 34 km up. The sonde is also bigger and heavier, and continues to send data as it falls back to earth after the balloon has exploded. And yes, it is polystyrene as a material is yet to be found with the equivalent weight, strength and insulating properties — the search for a replacement is ongoing.

A small white box with radio aerials being held by a woman
A lady holds the sonde wearing a green coast and safety glasses
A woman exits a tall shed holding a large balloon
A woman launches her balloon over the bay
A white box on a desk with various aerials attached
A man is on his knees tying the sonde on to a large balloon
A man is exiting the balloon shed withe a large white balloon
A man is letting go of a large ballon
A shot of the ocean and sky with a balloon travelling in the sky
A beautiful old brass and glass barometer still working. It is inside a glass case, creating a graph on paper.

First boating of the season

Occasionally the weather lines up here in such a way — low wind and swell, good visibility — that we get what we call a ‘boating day'. We have two coxswains as part of the team this year and this means we can go as far as Green Gorge on the east coast — about halfway down the island.

Whilst this is great recreation, it’s also an effective way to move small amounts of cargo around the island and, as we didn’t have helicopters for resupply this year, we have quite a lot of supplies that need to get out to field huts.

A couple of weekends ago, some of the team got busy cleaning and checking boats post resupply, so they’d be ready at the first opportunity.

Then, last Friday, we had a weather window that meant we could load up and head for Sandy Bay and Green Gorge. We delivered new comms equipment, RAPS equipment (remote area power supply), food rations, track markers, a tool cache and a field hut medical kit swap out. Saved a lot of walking and carrying!

In fact, they were so busy out there that no one managed to take any photos of the actual trip…

Four men working to replace the floor of the boat
A man on the back of the boat starting the engine to warm it up
Team all dressed in their dry suits with boats on trailers ready to go
Boat is on the water with its crew after having been launched off the back of a trailer being pulled by a tractor.
View of the sea and horizon with 2 boats going off in the distance
View of the beach with a boat returning to shore, watched over by penguins

Gardening Macca style

The Ranger in Charge, Chris, is not a man who likes to be idle. Locating an eroded spot on the isthmus near to some exposed station services (due to the large storms last year) he takes a moment to replant some tussock grass and fill the gaps, making everything much prettier and promptly attracting the local fauna.

A piece of land next to the coast with dirt, an old pipe and some upright markers.
A man is digging in the dirt, with a muddy beach and water behind
A man moving a big grass tussock
A fur seal int he background of a shot of tussocky grass
A man is stamping the dirt around where he has planted the grass
Two elephant seals lying on the newly created grassy garden

Q: When is a roof not a roof?

A: When it lets in as much rain as the plumber’s Nissen hut does.

Whilst all that rusted, corrugated iron can look pretty it doesn’t make for a great work space. The trades team and various volunteers are hard at work this week to replace the roof and give the hut a new lease on life, which makes for a very happy plumber.

'Macquarie Makeovers 2016’ — come back next week for before and after reno pics.

A close up of the corrugated iron sheeting showing the various colours of previous painted layers and the level of rust
A high shot of the old roof from the MPB — various holes clearly visible

Morning traffic jam

It’s not what you face on most roads, and this is the only one linking north and south of station.

I detoured down to the beach and around, as all animals have right of way here.

Four young elephant seals lying on the road
Two young male elephant seals chest barging each other
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