This Week At Macquarie Island: 18 December 2020

Name: Alana-Jayne Moore

Nicknames: Lans, Lani, Lana, AJ

Where are you from: I came here after living on Cocos (Keeling) Islands for a few years.

Previous seasons? This is my first season… of a few, I hope.

Job title: Senior Meteorological Officer

Describe your role in two sentences: Cloud watching, admin and managing rosters.

What did you do before you joined the AAD? Cloud watching, admin and managing rosters… in the tropics.

What is your favourite part of your job here at Macca? No one favourite thing, but if I had to pick it would be the ozone balloon releases.

If you were not a Meteorological Officer, what would be your dream job? Vineyard owner/operator. I’d live there - maybe in NZ or Europe - and have a little café attached.

How does this season at Macca compare to your previous seasons down south? Ask me after my 2^nd trip..

What do you like to do in your spare time? Go for a walk or a trip somewhere, spend time watching the wildlife. If the weather is bad, I like baking biscuits for everyone.

What song sums up your Macca experience so far? Hard Sun – Eddie Vedder. Heard it a lot this year! Luckily, I love it.

What actor would play you in a film version of our 73^st ANARE season here at Macca? Zooey Deschanel.

What is your favourite spot here at Macca and why? I haven’t been everywhere, but so far I’m quite partial to the beach at Bauer Bay. Beautiful scenery.

Favourite piece of Australian Antarctic Division kit? She-Wee. No comment.

What is your favourite book / movie (or both) and why?

Movie: Memoirs of a Geisha – Just loved the storyline. I’d love to go to Japan.

Book: A Long Walk Home by Judith Tebbutt. True story about her being kidnapped on holiday in Africa. Reminds you to never give up and keep going.

What is your typical 'Slushy FM' genre? Do you have a particular favourite? My music is anything I like the sound of, all mixed up and on shuffle. Eddie Vedder or Meg Mac probably the favourites.

Describe your Macca experience with: a sight, a smell, a sound, a feeling and a taste.
Sight – Penguins “hiding” behind the fence at the office. All I can see is their body, and no head. Always funny.

Smell – Seal wallows. Pungent.

Sound – King penguins calling.

Feeling – Hail or sand to the face in strong winds.

Taste – That first cucumber from hydroponics.

Do you have a favourite quote that you’d like to leave us with?
Jobs fill your pockets… Adventures fill your soul.

Whilst we are a week too early for Santa to visit Macca, we have had some visitors to the island that have made some of our inhabitants very happy!

Last weekend a very lost chinstrap penguin was spotted walking along the isthmus, before posing for photos and hanging out with some curious residents for a few hours. Unfortunately, the gentoo penguins weren’t as happy as everyone else with the visitor and kindly pointed it towards Antarctica, giving it some marching orders.

For those looking close enough, Buckles Bay has also had some shy albatrosses visiting the resident black browed albatrosses for the Christmas break.

Around the rest of Macca, our royal penguins have started hatching young chicks which can be heard screaming for food all over the island. Our first cormorant chicks have been spotted, as well as our first fur seal pups who have been running around barking at anything that gets too close!

For those interested in the rest of our penguin species, the king penguins have started laying eggs again (even though not all of last season’s chicks have fully fledged yet). The gentoo chicks are now big enough for some of them to start swimming and our rockhopper penguins are all on eggs, hopefully we will see our first chick in the next week or two.

It’s a fantastic time of the year to be on the island!