Mawson's engineering services supervisor, Sara, talks about how a long overdue project on the station has finally begun, and the station swings into gear for the summer.

The Mawson Bollard

With the arrival of the RSV Nuyina, it meant there were a few things that needed to be completed and one of those was the Mawson bollard.

The mooring bollard is out on West Arm and will be used to tie the Nuyina to while she is here at Mawson during re-supplies over coming years.

A mooring bollard you say, not a big deal. They don’t look like much. This is not that much different to any other one, other than we are in Antarctica.

In order to do this work, we took an excavator across the sea ice to drill the anchor rods. This was the third time we had tried and this time we succeeded. With all the prework done by previous and current winter crews, it all fell into place and the weather has even been nice to us, so far.

The plan this summer is cut the key out and grout in the main ground anchors. Then next year pour the concrete.

Here is our progress so far.

Sara (Mawson Engineering Service Supervisor)

White paint markings on a rocky landscape depict a square hole to be cut. In the background is a frozen sea.
An excavator with drilling attachment is positioned on a rocky landscape. In the distance, multi coloured buildings of a station are visible.
A square hole has been roughly cut out of the rock. The rocky landscape slopes away in the background to a frozen sea
A cleanly cut square hole has been drilled in the solid rock of a slope

The stations swings into gear

With inductions out of the way for those new to station, this week saw the summer swing into gear in earnest. New fire team members mean new team rosters and a need to walk around the station to understand where alarms correspond to and where fire hydrants are located. Practice drills are also required for all teams as they come onto duty each Wednesday. This week it was made a little easier to hold an all station fire muster when a little too much deodorant set off an alarm in the sleeping quarters. The whole station quickly gathered and moved down to our alternate muster point in the Green Store (our supply warehouse) until everything was cleared as a false alarm.

The recent spell of amazing weather has also allowed our seabird science team to successfully spend time on the local islands tagging Adélie penguins and checking on the population. It is too early to tell quite yet, but it is hoped that the decline noticed over previous years has not continued into this season. The next stage will be to move to some of the further islands while the sea ice is still strong enough to support vehicles to gather further vital data on the local seabird community.

With the sea ice tenuously holding on, our senior field training officer, Dave, put in extra time to give the new expeditioners a chance to see the emperor penguin colony out at Auster. Three trips were made, and all the new expeditioners were able to take advantage of the wonderful opportunity before we have to say a final farewell to our friends until next winter.

Cat (Mawson Station Leader)

Five men are dressed in fire fighting clothing and standing in front of a red vehicle. A fire hose is extended from the vehicle.
Two birds are in the photograph on a rocky landscape. They are positioned such that it appears one bird has two heads.
An ice plateau ends in cliffs above a frozen sea. Part of the plateau has carved off into an iceberg to the right of frame.
A bird is photographed mid flight with wings outstretched above a rocky landscape. In the background is an ocean frozen over by ice.
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