Since leaving Davis more than a week ago we've settled into the rhythm of shipboard life again. The food is excellent (and there's too much of it), so most people are using the small gym to work off some energy and justify eating three meals a day. Between meals, people occupy themselves with work (almost everybody has a laptop computer), reading, writing, Scrabble, card games, movies, and guitar practise.
We're moving across time zones and have changed our clocks a couple of times already, so unless you make an effort to keep to a timetable it's easy to confuse your body clock. At almost any hour of the day or night you can find someone in the mess (that's the name for the restaurant on a ship) making tea and a snack, and reading through the bulletins of news from the outside world which are distributed every day.
There are a lot of stops on this trip home. First, we spent a day about 100 km south of Davis with the ship parked up against an iceberg while the three helicopters worked non-stop for four hours flying drums of fuel to the shore. There were 264 drums to move, and the Squirrel helicopters can carry 3 at a time, so there were a lot of trips. The fuel will be used next year for an IPY science project studying the Gamburtsev Subglacial Mountains - a huge mountain range in the middle of Antarctica that is completely buried by ice. The fuel will be used for aircraft fitted with gravity meters, magnetometers and ice radars that will look "through" the ice to reveal the mountains beneath.
Two days later we were at Mawson Station, Australia's first base in Antarctica. We had a lot of cargo to deliver there, but this year the fast ice around the station never broke away, so we had to stop at the edge of the ice, about 13 km away.
The ice didn't only affect us: it's also very important for the Adelie penguins that live close to Mawson. After their chicks hatch, the parents are busy making trips to the sea to collect food. When the ice doesn't break out, the trip is much longer, so they can't bring back as much food, and more of the chicks die. This year, about 2000 chicks hatched, but they all died. That's sad, but it happens every few years at almost all penguin rookeries. They are living in an extreme environment, and even a small change in ice conditions or food supply can mean the difference between life and death.
Because of the ice, all the cargo to and from Mawson was moved by the helicopters again. It was cold work for some of us on the ship, moving crates and boxes from the shipping containers on the foredeck to the helideck at the stern of the ship. But although the air was cold, the view was magnificent!
To the south, across the frozen sea, we could see the rocky peninsula where Mawson station is built, and clearly see the two tall wind turbines they use to generate electricity. Behind the station the ice sheet rises into the distance, and several jagged mountain ranges poke up through the ice - the ones I saw on the way from Davis to Enderby Land in January.
Beside us, at the ice edge, Emperor penguins gathered to swim in the wash of the propellor behind the ship. Sometimes they would slip out of the water and stand around on the ice - watching us while we watched them. As winter sets in and we head back north, the Emperor penguins will be returning to their colonies to start breeding, and brooding their eggs through the middle of winter.
Icebergs lined our northern horizon, and on calm days there would be a mirage, so they seemed to be floating up in the sky. You don't only get mirages in hot places - what you need is air of different temperatures. Here, most of the air was around -10°C, but there was a 'warm' layer at about -2°C just above the water, which bent the light rays back up and made the mirage.
Leaving Mawson a couple of days ago, we sailed across a large polynya, which is a region where thick sea ice never forms, because winds or currents keep moving it away.
After a few calm cold days, the sea was covered by a thin skin of new ice a few centimetres thick. I was odd to see the skua gulls sitting and walking on the surface of the sea, instead of swimming in it. The ship ploughs through unaffected, scattering spray and ice fragments away from the bow, which skitter and glide across the thin ice until the bow wave catches up and overwhelms them. The evening was clear and the sunset golden, so the ship's bridge was packed as we left the open water of the polynya and re-entered the pack ice. As we went to sleep that night the ship was weaving and shuddering as we forced a way through.
The last two days we've been steaming eastwards in open water, making good time towards Casey. We expect to arrive there on Thursday. In the meantime, there are always a few icebergs to look at, and often seabirds and whales too. So when I've had enough of books, movies, games and work I can always go and admire the view.
Heading east,
Dan
