Hello Friends
well here again and lots been happening in the weeks since my last entry into the world or BLOG. Last week I was talking about the real person in charge of the station and one person didn't agree with me. Young Steve from Casey, well you'll be happy to know i've spoken to the Chef at Casey and he will now be on dehydrated meals for the rest of the season, sorry Steve! I also got another email from someone else who gave me a link to the supplier for the eggs we use here. Its a little different when you think about it as the eggs we have here are already close to 7 months old. How do they last so long...........check it out
HERE. But just incase you cant be bothered ill cut to the chase they are oiled.
Mind out eggs are ok on station but in the field they are a BIG no no. A couple years ago with the outbreak of the bird influenza highlighted this. So rather than put the penguins at risk of contracting something we have brought down with us we limit the consumption of anything bird or chicken related to station and only stuff like 2 minute chicken noodle soup is allowed into the field, well let's face it there no chicken in it anyway! Pasteurized powdered egg is allowed as all the possible nasties have been removed. I do make a mean powdered egg omelet too even if i do say so myself!!
Righto, well the weekend before last as I mentioned in the last blog a group of 5 of us went into the field. We went to a field hut called Bandits which is the furthest from Station at about 26km to the North East. Originally built in 1983 to support seal research it lay on top of a rocky outcrop on an island. Fantastic views to the South the Plateau.................
 |
| Pic Michael Goldstein |
Ive been experimenting with a panorama program and been getting some mixed results. The pic below is actually 10 pics 5 wide x 2 high and file size in its full copy 105mb here you can only see a small one but imagine how big i could blow it up to!!
 |
| Pic Michael Goldstein |
and to the North West Iceberg Alley and beautiful sunsets amongst the bergs..........
 |
| Pic Michael Goldstein |
Mind you up close they are quite impressive too......
 |
Pic Michael Goldstein
Riding through the Icebergs is an experience. Below Darren took a pic and you can see how loaded up we aere. Along with our personal effects there are some standard survival gear you need to take. Your personal survival bag (backpack) has the basics in it but when you through a quad into the mix you need more. Put the quads on sea ice and you need more again. Quad recovery gear is the bigish ogange bag you see on the quad second from left and you need 1 per 2 quads meaning with the 5 quads we needed 3. In them you have ropes, pulleys, ice screws for recovering a bike bogged or fallen through the ice. Then there is also jump leads (for flat batteries on the quads) a tyre pump and tools. We also have to take a ice drill so we can measure the ice in areas where the thickness of the ice is unknown. Ice needs to be at least 300mm thick to support the weight of a quad thankfully everywhere we went it was almost tripple that at 900mm.
|
 |
| Pic Darren White |
Dazza enjoying himself.....
 |
| Pic Darren White |
Feild huts also have a supply of food in them. Here you can see as the heat is building up in the hut the bottles thawing out............
 |
| Pic Darren White |
Relaxing at the table after dinner but before the cards came out and a new game "joe" anyone played that one before????
 |
| Pic Darren White |
The ride home was a little cooler too with temps getting to -29c. Visors were freezing making it next to impossible to see unless you had the visors up. That had its draw backs though as you can imagine. Dazzas lovely frosty eyelashes tell the story............
 |
| Pic Darren White |
Moving right along here to Deep Lake, it's located only about 8-10km as the crow flies from station. There is two ways which you get there depends on how long it will take. There is the long way which is walking from Station and the short way which involves a quad bike ride to Brooks Field hut and a short walk to get there.
Bottom left you can see Davis and middle right Deep Lake.......
The Lake levels have been monitored monthly since
the 1976, as it’s a unique lake in the area. Around some 3000 - 5000 years ago sea levels
dropped cutting seawater off from the lake. Since then evaporation has
occurred and the lake has become hyper saline. The lake contains 270g of salt
per liter and the saltiest by far in this area of the Vestfold Hills. Remarkably Deep lake as salty as it is is only a couple kilometers from freshwater lakes and comparing it to the Dead Sea at 340g of salt per litre its up there.
A Lake surface temperature can drop to -20c and never
freezes over winter so probably not the best idea to put your hands in there as you'll get frostbite quite quickly. Sometimes with a little melt fresh water on top there might be a very thin ice cover and a dusting of snow but don't be fooled it's not thick enough to hold anyone. Over summer the surface of the lake can be as high as +10c. The
record from Deep lake is one of the longest non weather records continually
monitored in Antarctica. Keeping the record going is very important as the lake
is a state of the environment indicator.
A fair bit of research has been done over the years out there and I did find one article which I thought quite interesting HERE.
Below Darren took some pics from his trip and first up is a pic from his quad on his way to Brooks Hut.......
 |
| Pic Darren White |
A quick selfie on the way with a bit of everything in it.....Bergs, quad and the moon.
 |
| Pic Darren White |
Deep Lake......
 |
| Pic Darren White |
Ladge with Deep Lake in the background......
 |
| Pic Darren White |
Left to right.....Dr John, Ladge and Dazza loving the cold a little too much I think it might be affecting Dazza a little making his tongue to silly things!!
 |
| Pic Darren White |
Last weekend myself and Aaron went for a little cruise on the quads to try and get some shots of the sun going down amongst the bergs and as a little bonus we also got the moon going down too. Aaron took some nice pics of me taking pics. As you can see its a little cool with only 3 layers on probably -20c.......
 |
| Pic Aaron Stanley |
 |
| Pic Aaron Stanley |
 |
| Pic Aaron Stanley |
 |
| Pic Aaron Stanley |
Was amazing that the moon didn't go vertically down but diagonally down.....
 |
| Pic Michael Goldstein |
The ber below is the same as on the left of the above pic along with having to walk 100m to get it in exactly the right position to make it in the middle of the berg.
 |
| Pic Michael Goldstein |
Then the other direction was also stinning......
 |
| Pic Michael Goldstein |
 |
| Pic Michael Goldstein |
 |
| Pic Michael Goldstein |
 |
| Pic Michael Goldstein |
Davis Station in the twilight...........
 |
| Pic Michael Goldstein |
So the last big thing that happened since my last blog was the last setting of the sun. Winter is the other extreme of summer's midnight sun with no sun and Tuesday marked the last sunrise and sunset. It's quite amazing as we have all been so busy that i haven't really noticed that we had been losing so much light so quickly.
At the moment we are still getting light but the sun is hiding under the horizon giving us a nice soft twilight. On Tuesday at 13:24 Davis Station time the sun came up behind cloud but the whole station was there to experience it.
 |
| Pic Aaron Stanley |
 |
| Pic Aaron Stanley |
About 1/2 hour later at 13:58 the sun had disappeared under the horizon and that was it and we were back to work.
SO time seems to be going very quickly at the moment, in no time at all Mid-winter's (winter solstice) which is a big celebration time in Antarctica. It's been about 7 months here and dose and doesn't feel like a long time. So much has happened both here and home that you really do at times feel like you're missing out.
Found out yesterday that my little sister is engaged which is great but it's times like this you know you're missing out on what's happening in the "real world".
Anyway enough of me for this blog hope everyone is well and not too wet with all the rain up the Eastern seaboard at the moment.
Take Care
Michael
P.S............."I
will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness for
it
shows me the stars."
Og Mandino
No comments:
Post a Comment