Day 15 - Scary Ice times - Halloween

Halloween. In case it’s not scary enough to be traveling through thick pack-ice with a few thousand feet of water beneath – its Halloween on the icy ocean.

Halloween on the Ice

Helicopter Assembly

 Aside from getting more reading done and one box repacked, today was the first helicopter operation. After getting the Heli’s ready, yes they first required the rotor blades to be installed and then one of them could take off to search for a passage south. The reccie ops however wasn’t as friendly as hoped, there was no obvious direct way south.  Still we fetched a few pictures and on the side saw a flock of penguins jumping and ploughing through the frigid waters, journeying alongside of the Aurora Australis.

Off - for a Recci Flight

Halloween Desert

 Dinner time was dress up time. Get your scariest outfit together was the task. As none of us had been thinking about Halloween prior to departure no-one was really prepared. However improvisation is always the best and produced a couple of great outfits. Aside from taking some group photos up on the bridge and in front of the Aurora Australis sign, a presentation, some short films and a game of darts was on the evening program. On top of all this I also got in a run on the running machine. In some way a must as I was wearing my running pants – really scary muscly pants.

Scary Halloween Greetings

Off to bed now

Day 14 - The Focsle and 50 shades of Blue

Sunset in the ice

Yoga, Zumba was the start of the day followed by some leisurely reading of old expedition reports from the Mawson area.  Sounds almost like Groundhog day. The only different my reading material is very interesting. Mawson station and its surrounding was the target of a lot of glaciology and geology work during the IGY and following years. Reading through these reports makes me feel like stepping into the footsteps of these Explorers, getting my excitement up.

The Focsle

Exiting was also the announcement that the helicopters will be doing a Recci flight. Due to weather the heli ops was cancelled. Instead tours of the Focsle were announced. The Focsle is the front of the ship. During our voyage the front of the ship has gotten encased in some pretty thick ice. Slippery when wet and in our case icy. Thus extra caution is required. Rewarded was the trip with pretty views of icicles and the view onto the bow of the ship.

Plowing through the waters

While exploring the Foscle there was a flock of penguins accompanying our ship in the water.

Though again mostly overcast during the day, the sun was once again shining for bed time and created a magnificent evening sky. I do believe Antarctica is made of 50 shades of blue, a thousand shades of grey and a tint of golden.

Day 13 - Breaking the lock in the ice

Visitors in the Sky

Zumba Zumba , noop today I skipped the zumba and only did away with yoga as we had a group meeting planned. As much as possible we are using the time on the ship to prepare our field work, this includes, some repacking of our gear and arranging things for all eventualities. One of the scenarios is that we will be sitting at Davis station for a few days before getting over to our first destination Mawson. In this case we most likely will lose access to some of our equipment. Still we want to be able to work and get potentially some reconnaissance work at Davis done. So here we are thinking about eventualities, and what would be needed if. You can imagine, how many impossible scenarios may be possible…

Airplane, Sun and Snow Flakes

In regard to possibilities. Today we had a visit from our Basler aircraft currently stationed at Davis Station. The Basler aircraft was doing some ice reconnaissance work for to inform us about ice conditions and possible ways through the ice to the south. Apparently only a few tens of miles away a large band of open water is waiting for us to sail straight to Davis. The only problem is that the sea-ice within this stretch is extremely thick and dense, leaving little room for the Aurora to progress.

The latest update then was that we will try further west again. Off we go. Another few days guaranteed on board. The highlight of the day was the sun set- yoop after a few days of grey with snow and sometimes poor visibility the sun was kind to us and just for the sun set showed its face on the side of a larger cloud band. The colors were spectacular and worth standing in the cold for a while. 

Its getting Whiter after the sun is down

Evening Sky Reflections