Field training

We do a week of training in Tasmania with the Australian Antarctic Division before departure. This is repeated on the ship south, (here on the heli-deck) and again at the Antarctic station on arrival, before we can travel out on the field. Training ranges from crevasse rescue, surviving blizzards, navigation, radio usage, and other survival techniques, to fire fighting and living in small and isolated communities.

Midnight in the Antarctic summer.

We sail close to the sculpted icebergs on our journey south. Icebergs are formed by ice calving from the Antarctic glaciers and ice shelf. Four fifths of the iceberg is submerged. Icebergs can be tabular, rounded or irregular, weathered by the wind and the waves.

Sea Ice

There are many different stages to sea ice; frazil, grease ice, nilas, first-year ice, pancake ice and pack ice. Salt is expelled from the forming ice. The resulting dense saline water falls to form Antarctic Bottom Water, which influences the ocean currents. The algae, which grow on the bottom of the sea ice, are food for krill, providing an important food source for whales and seals.

Weddell seal on Petersen Island.

Moulting Elephant seals in their wallow beside Davis Station.

Bechervaise Island, Mawson.

A penguin weighbridge on the island determines how much the penguins have eaten when they have been out at sea.

Diving

Scientists place tiles on the ocean floor close to, and at isolated places a long distance from the station, to compare what grows on the tiles and assess human impact on the environment.

Dipnetting

Scientists Cath and Ben go dipnetting for amphipods around the Swain Group of islands. The amphipods response following exposure to metals is determined in experiments and used to establish environmental quality guidelines for Antarctica as part of the human impact studies.

Skiing

In the evenings we ski around the back of Casey Station to O'Brien Bay and back over Penguin Pass. Any time we leave the station we must carry an 18kg pack including, amongst other things: navigation equipment; radio; food; stove; bivvy bag; warm clothes; throw bag to rescue anyone who has fallen through the ice; ice-axe. In this isolated environment we are motivated to get out and do things together in our free time. But with the introduction of computers and email to Antarctica, the old-timers say things are changing and the sense of community is not what it used to be. Antarctica does, however, lag behind in the world’s break down of community, and there remains here a strong sense of connection to each other and respect for the environment. Cooperation crosses national boundaries and extends to other countries based on the continent. While I am here, a Chinese helicopter flies in for an x-ray of an expeditioner's suspected fracture – and a cup of tea and biscuits - before the great rotor blades turn again to carry the passenger back to the Chinese base.

Mount Henderson

We organize field trips for our leisure time away from the station. We are heading for Mount Henderson, which rises to nine hundred and fifty metres. Mount Henderson is situated about fifteen kilometres behind Mawson Station at the northern end of the Framnes Mountains.

Leaving Casey Station.

They all come to the wharf to wave goodbye. I know they will return to the bar in the red-shed; to the warmth and the laughter and the noise. The whole world is there. But as the ship pulls away, blowing its whistle three times in an echoing farewell, and they fade to a tiny dot of colour in a vast expanse of white, I see how tiny we are.