This week, Heidi our winter field training officer led a group of experienced Antarctic expeditioners on a search and rescue (SAR) training field trip to Henderson Hut.
During sunny weather conditions, the interim emergency response team familiarised themselves with the icy plateau and driving the SAR Hägg on the routes and waypoints to and from the station. They will form the SAR team until all winter expeditioners have been trained in responding to a SAR incident.
While the Adélie penguins can be noisy (and quite grumpy) during moulting season, our other permanent residents the Weddell seals are much more placid and sedentary.
Mawson is currently home to dozens of resting and moulting Weddell seals hauling on the ice around station. The Weddell seal can grow to three metres long and weigh 400–500 kilograms.
As we go about our daily business on station, they don’t seem to mind sharing their home with us or having their photo taken in a variety of reclining positions.
At the moment we mostly have male seals on station, but we look forward to greeting the females with their pups around October later this year.
Our first group of winter expeditioners also went beyond station limits when they set off for an overnight survival training field trip this week. Sleeping in a bivvy bag on the icy plateau overnight can be a cold and uncomfortable experience but excellent training for emergency situations that can occur in Antarctica.
When Heidi took Eddie, Alex, Benny and Leon out for a night of sleeping under the stars near Henderson’s Hut, they got more than they bargained for — a night of sleeping under an aurora filled sky, snapped here from a bivvy bag!
