Bren in Antarctica

We’re due to reach the pack ice floe later tomorrow, but we’re increasingly sighting more and more icebergs and bergy bits. No sea ice forming yet, just things that have broken off from further south and has floated up here.

Weather-wise it’s starting to get pretty cold out. Checking the info right now it’s -4.20°C outside, and the seawater temp is -1.30°C. Fun fact of the day is that whilst fresh water freezes at 0 degrees, seawater goes down to minus 1.8 degrees before it freezes solid. Still, the albatross and petrels we see don’t seem to mind chilling out in it and having a paddle.

Sunlight continues to increase, a combination of heading further south toward the Antarctic circle and heading into the summer season. Today we have around 17 hours of daytime (hidden by lots of fog and cloud today though) compared to Hobart’s approx 14 hours.

Looks like we’re heading in the right direction.

Today is the first day seeing snow outside, so I’m pretty sure we’re heading the ship in the right direction. Big, fluffy flat flakes like you see in the movies drifting around in the air. It’s really pretty to look at, until it freezes on the steel decks that is – then it becomes very slippery to be outside!

Training continues with briefings now centered around resupply planning for Davis. As I have a connecting flight to Mawson I don’t have official duties during resupply, as any day we could be told to grab our bags and head to the skiway once we get a weather window to fly, so there’s not much point rostering us into the plan. They need help monitoring the fuel line which runs from the ship to station, kitchen slushy, and other duties like that so I’ll be sure to pitch in where I can. Maybe get some internet on station if I’m lucky as it’s been a long time with no Facebook and personal email.

No winner for the iceberg sweepstakes yet, but we continue to be on the lookout for the first sighting of the voyage. Last I heard we’re due to reach the pack ice on Saturday.

I was reading in the library tonight when someone came past: “Hey – there’s an aurora going off above the ship!”

I race up the stairs to the bridge. There’s cloud around the horizon, but sure enough out the front windows we can see bands of shimmering green of all different hues in the clear patch of night sky.

A friend and I ventured out onto the starboard deck. Right over the ship, running fore to aft, was a dazzling bright aurora. It was practically dancing on top of the ship it looked so close to us! After a while I raced back to grab my camera from my cabin. Here’s a quick shot which will never do it justice – especially with a very rocky ship tonight – but worth a try.

Well there we go. My first aurora, and hopefully we see a few more before we end up with constant daylight in the coming Antarctic summer months.

Training has been going well over the last few days. We’ve been learning orienteering with a map and compass, tying knots for Search and Rescue (SAR) and to tie down vehicles, reviewing survival kit contents (including putting up a tent in the rec room!), and operating handheld VHF radios. It’s been good keeping busy with training and briefings.

The social club has also been keeping me busy. Last night we were fortunate to have one of the two CHINARE expeditioners give a presentation on their upcoming summer season. It was a very popular talk with the theatre being packed out with us ANARE expeditioners keen to hear what our Chinese colleagues will be up to, as their Zongshan station is very close to our Davis station, and both nations quite often collaborate with scientific or logistic projects. During the preso, the speaker also asked me to read out his English translation of a song they wrote last year at Zongshan, so I’m very proud to have assisted him with this. It’s special for me as I’ll be one of the 18 expos flying from Davis to Mawson on the CHINARE Bassler. I also found out the name of their plane is “Snow Eagle”.

As for the seas it was okay for the last few days, but since this afternoon the 6 metre seas have really started to hit the ship sideways, making it roll a lot from side to side in the water. Doing paperwork in the comms office this afternoon was quite a challenge as pens, documents, and even laptops want to slide off the desk unless they’re secured. Even my office chair started to slide around when we hit the really rolly bits! I heard a forecast this morning that this weather will probably remain tomorrow, then improve somewhat later in the week. We’re expected to reach the “ice zone” on Saturday.

Today I ran the Melbourne Cup presentation in the mess. Despite our efforts in comms we were unable to hear the race call clearly enough over the sat phone from head office, and there’s still a few issues with email that we would not be able to receive an audio file of the race (and we don’t have “internet” on the ship – the network only makes phone calls or sends emails to and from the ship). Despite the technical issues I did receive the race results from a call back home. So for our presentation we had a Best Hat and Best Dressed entries in our “Fashion on the Field” segment, and then I announced the sweepstakes winners that we had been running over the afternoon. I’m very pleased that both in the kitty and winners donating their prizemoney we successfully raised $345 which is going to support Camp Quality which is a good cause.

Back to Saturday we had an emergency muster drill on the heli deck. It was my first time I’ve had to put on my survival gear since getting kitted up in Kingston. It was good to familiarise myself with the gear and procedures and we’ll practice again when we get into the ice.

How have I not mentioned food yet in this post?! The other night we had a Sunday Roast, with amazing chicken, beef, and vegies. The deserts each night are also amazing and I really don’t know how they whip this stuff up in the galley when the ship pitches and rolls around like it does. Anyway, resisting the urge for second desert (for now…)

As for travel we still continue westward. The ship has now passed 110°E so we’re now out from under Australia and somewhat under the Indian Ocean. Clocks go back an hour again tonight (UTC+8) and then again Friday night to then take us on to Davis time.

The voyage has been going well so far. Fortunately I handle the rough seas pretty well even when it gets up to 6-8 metres as we’ve had the past few days.

To help pass the time, I’ve volunteered to be part of the onboard social club, organising nightly talks from the science projects so we can all hear about what they’ll be doing this summer, and picking a movie to watch in the cinema, etc. It keeps me busy but there is a lot of opinion on wither my movie choices are good or bad. All in good fun of course.

Ship life revolves around food a lot down here. We’re still fortunate to be enjoying fresh bananas, milk, and salads, so I’m making the most of those. It’s always tempting to have a Tim Tam with your cuppa as the biscuits seem to come from a bottomless tin in the galley.

In order to keep the waistline at bay, I’ve taken to running on the treadmill each morning, and doing several stair climbs from E deck to A deck at the front of the ship. You have to be careful doing both when the ship is rocking and rolling about though! I’m avoiding gym weights till the sea calms down a little.

I’m a bit of a night owl and the last two nights I’ve been up to the ship’s bridge when it’s late. The almost full moon really lights up the ocean and you can see all around as we continue to push through 6 metre swells. The late shift Met and ship people enjoy the company so it’s good to hear about what they’re doing and what all the instruments mean.

Training has commenced and has so far covered sea ice travel and map/compass orienteering for my group. It’s good we’re making use of the time on the ship so when we get to station we’ll be prepared for our field training.

Time to head off now. I’m running a boardgame session and will be showing some fellow expeditioners how to play Settlers of Catan and Ticket to Ride.

This morning I woke up at 05:30. After a quiet night anchored at Bruny the ship’s engines started up, in preparation for our departure. We were soon underway and continuing on down the eastern coast of Tasmania. I snapped a couple of nice pictures of the rugged cliffs as we went past.

Around lunchtime the ship continued westward and slipped between Mewstone and Maatsuyker Island, giving us expeditioners a great opportunity to further try out our cameras. Some albatross were spotted but I wasn’t quick enough to grab my camera at the time. I’ve been told there’s plenty of wildlife on the voyage so I hope to spot some real soon.

Science on board has also commenced, with the Continuous Plankton Recorder deployed after lunch.

As for the seas they’re still fairly kind here at the moment. We received word that Cape Sorell had a maximum wave height of 15 metres yesterday, so sheltering behind Bruny for a day was definitely the most sensible option. Right now the ship will occasionally lurch up and down as it crosses a big wave but so far I’ve kept my feet.

As for tonight we’ve finished dinner and I’m just deciding between a movie in the cinema or continue playing a video game. Perhaps both!

We’re at sea! A quick recap of our departure…

Yesterday was a rather long day. It started with the bus coming to collect us expeditioners from our hotels and we were off to the wharf before 7am. After baggage weigh-in and running a small IT Helpdesk for non-Division expeditioners helping them get setup, I was then on the ship to start our first tour and safety briefings.

When the first session was completed in the morning we had about 2 hours off the ship to see our friends and families to say goodbye, then it was back on to the ship to check out our cabins and do a safety muster to the heli deck.

In no time at all we were casting off the lines and heading off down the Derwent! Bye bye Hobart – see you next year!

The first night was fairly quiet with most expos having an early dinner then off to their cabins after such a big departure day. The food is really good by the way, and there’s still loads of fresh produce as it’s early in the voyage. I’m making the most of salads and fresh fruit while I still can.

As for the voyage, we haven’t gone very far – in fact we can look out a window and see Bruny Island quite easily! We’ve stopped in Adventure Bay overnight as the island and the southernmost tip of Tasmania is sheltering us from a raging storm with 11 metre swells out there. The plan is to continue to wait the bad weather out today in hopes it improves. Anyway this has been the gentlest introduction to the Southern Ocean one could hope for.

We should be heading off tomorrow Tuesday 06:00 into what should be 5-6 metre seas by then – before the next big system heads our way of course. In the mean time, today is going to be about getting the rest of my gear stowed away, meeting the remaining expeditioners I’ve yet to say hi to, enjoy the few bars of 3G data whilst we’re still in range, and try to go easy on eating all the amazing food the galley makes for us.