Polar Passport

New Year at Davis

After one week working at the Bunger Hills, we arrived back at Davis Station on December 31, at 5 pm. The most important thing to do when we arrived was to have a shower! Then dinner - we had good food at the Bunger Hills, but it's nice when someone else cooks for you, and here at the Station there is a professional chef. And after dinner, the New Year's Eve party!

There were about 50 people at Davis Station that evening, and everyone was in the lounge room to celebrate. Because it is light outside 24 hours/day, they cover the windows to make it darker inside - a better party atmosphere. Outside, the Sun was shining on the icebergs just a few kilometres from the shore, but inside the Station band was playing, and at midnight we sang Auld Lang Syne, drank a toast, and carried on with the party, just like everywhere else in the world!

On January 2 and 3, we had strong winds, which blew away a lot of the sea ice in front of the station, so now we have open water beside us, with a few penguins and seals swimming in it. Maybe you can see that on the Davis Webcam.

Tomorrow, Nick and I will fly about 1000 km west of here, to work for a few days at Mt Riiser-Larsen. Like at Bunger Hills, we'll install a GPS receiver there.

Happy 2007!

Dan

Davis Station

Yesterday we arrived in Antarctica!

At about 7:00 am, we arrived at Davis Station, and 'parked' the ship in the fast ice which extends about 2 km from the shore. The ice has been melting, and is now too weak to travel on, so we spent the day transferring people and cargo from the ship to the land by helicopter.

Some people are only staying here a few days, and will return to Australia on this voyage in a few days. These 'round-trippers' are very busy, getting their work done in such a short time - mostly they are collecting biological samples which will be analysed later: mosses, and the small plants and animals that live in the water here. The ship will also take some of the people who stayed here for all of the last winter - they've been in Antarctica for more than a year!

Tomorrow, December 22, is the solstice, or midsummer. In most of the southern hemisphere, this is the longest day of the year, but here we are south of the Antarctic Circle, and the Sun never doesn't set at all for several weeks in the middle of summer.

So what will we see?

Nothing special, but the Sun will be higher in the sky than at any other time of the year. Because it is an important turning-point in this place, where the Sun and the seasons have so much influence on life, the people on station will have a small celebration.

I might not be here for the party, though: if the weather is good, I will fly with four other people to the Bunger Hills, one thousand kilometres east of here.

We'll work there for a few days, staying in a hut that the Australian Antarctic Division put there several years ago.

Today, the weather forecasters told us it was snowing at the Bunger Hills, so we couldn't fly there. We have a meeting tomorrow morning at 08:00 with the pilots, forecasters, and the Station Leader, to decide whether we will be able to go.

Hoping for good weather,

Dan