Busy times before winter sets in

Aaron Stanley March 8, 2016

Lots of things have been happening the last two weeks here at Davis Station. Due to the Aurora Australis (Ship) not coming to Davis we had a visit from the US Air Force with their C-130 Hercules. They picked up the majority (35) of the summer expeditioners and took them to McMurdo where they departed for Australia on the Skytraders A319. Two summer expeditioners remain which will be picked up by the Zue Long, a Chinese ship possibly tomorrow that will take them back to Australia. Then there will be 16 of us wintering crew remaining on station.

Our winter station leader with the C130 crew overlooking the icebergs

The weather is slowly getting colder, temps anywhere between -10.5 to +0.9 degrees cel. Not including the wind chill factor, which has been around -17 in recent hours. Shy of blizzard conditions yesterday we had winds of 29kts (54kms/hr) gusting to 43kts (80kms/hr), visibility of around 1km at some stages.

In the far distance you can see the sea ice which is progressing it's way towards the station. Won't be long before I can say I can walk on water.... (Frozen of course!) It's nice to see some small icebergs and pancake ice in the waters near the station. At some stages it looks like the ice will stay, then gets blown away by the strong sometimes gale force winds.

Pancake ice along the shores of Davis Station. (Black and White).

The suns rays at first light across the vast ocean with a subtle orange and yellow glow casting shadows onto icebergs behind.

We also farewelled the Heli-Res crew that had done a fantastic job during the season providing not only transport for the expeditioners but a major advantage in transporting goods to and from station and remote locations. It was such a privilege to be able to get a few helicopter rides for field training and work purposes. Seeing this part of Antarctica from the sky really puts things into perspective and makes you realise how big this continent is.

The majority of the winter expeditioners at the heli-pad farewelling the Heli-Res crew.

The team from Heli-Res and their 3 helicopters.

Make sure you check out their website at www.helires.com.au

The first of 3 helicopters departs Davis enroute to Mawson station.

The other night after dinner I wondered out to take a few photos. I'm glad that I did because I came across this adélie penguin standing on top of this snow which made for a perfect photo opportunity. It looks like the penguin is wearing a coat with a hood, it is actually malting. This young penguin will loose all of it's baby feathers and be replaced with adult feathers. During this process the penguins stay on the land as they are not waterproof and cannot go swimming or catch fish.

Adélie penguin looking into the distance.

That same night about an hour before sunset I captured this next photo. The suns rays peaking through the dense clouds above illuminating a line of stratocumulus below. Earlier I had heard one of the large icebergs breaking up and crashing into the ocean below, I had thought it was the iceberg with the hole in the side, but it had been there for a few days already.

Wondering around the waters edge I was looking at all the small bits of ice that had washed up. For some reason this small piece of ice looks like a bear.

Wondering around the waters edge there are some magnificent little ice shelfs overhanging the rocks. I love the icicles precariously dangling over the sea below.

As mentioned before it was very windy and at times close to blizzard conditions, but we did not have a blizzard. The following conditions must be met for a blizzard to occur:

- Persistent gale force winds above 34kts for more than 1 hour

- Visibility less than 100m

- Temperature below 0 deg cel.

Being the storm chaser I am, I had to go out to experience the harsh conditions Antarctica has to offer. Spare a thought for these cute adélie penguins, all puffed up braving the weather outside. Stay tuned for video....

4 adélie penguins in front of the station sign with directions to all places around the world.

Don't forget to check out "This week at Davis" at the AAD website for all the latest station news.

Stay tuned for more updates ~ Aaron.

Survival Field Training 15-17th Feb

Aaron Stanley February 23, 2016

It is mandatory that all winter expeditioners undertake 3 days of survival field training to give us the skills needed to operate away from station and during extreme weather. Our field training started off with a registration process to detail what our plans were.

Our planned route from Davis Station on the far left to Brookes Hut top right. Each grid = 1km

Followed by collecting our field packs which contain a sleeping bag, bivy bag, ice axe, maps, compass, boot chains. In addition we add a few spare layers of clothing and survival food. We then visited the doctor who showed us through a medical kit before collecting our own for the trip. Then it was off to comms to collect a handheld GPS device, personal locator beacon and radio. After all this it was time to set off!

We left around midday for the 3-5 hour hike to Brookes Hut, approximately 11 kms. With the temperature hovering around -5.6dec cel we started walking along the rocky dingle road dodging slightly frozen puddles of water, we made our way to the turn off point to follow the lakes.

From here we were walking over large rocks resembling the landscape of Mars. We then came across Lake Dingle and then Lake Stinear, approximately 3 kms long. Walking right along the waters edge below rock and ice cliffs. By this time we'd been walking for about 4 hours and still had a fair way to go until our destination. Using the compass and maps to guide the way, and the GPS as a confirmation that we'd figured it out right.

We reached the end of Lake Stinear and felt like such an achievement to get to that point.

Stunning reflections in the water of Lake Stinear.

Across another hill and we were greeted with the magnificent Deep Lake. It is located at 51m BELOW sea level, the lowest accessible point in Antarctica! The salinity is 10 times saltier than
the sea. Not the nicest water to taste!

Deep Lake, the lowest point in Antarctica 51m below sea level!

My penguin chilling alongside Deep Lake. This lake will never freeze even when the temperature gets to -40 deg cel or colder!

After a short stop we continued on our way using our maps and compass, over a massive hill of rocks and onto a steep sheet of ice. Having to get out the boot chains we navigated our way up and over with only 1.3km's to go the end was in sight.

Just before we put the boot chains on.....

Eventually after one more hill we could see Brookes Hut overlooking the slightly frozen sea of Shirokaya Bay.

After 6 1/2 hours walking it was such a relief and a sense of achievement to have reached our destination. Brookes Hut was originally constructed in 1972 and since then has been a refuge for expeditions on long traverses around the area providing 4 beds and a basic kitchen.

Part of the survival training we had our dinner which consisted of a de-hydrated meal. I had chosen beef teriyaki which sounded great, looked like crap but did actually taste very nice.

Just add boiling water and wait 15 minutes. Not that we waited that long as we'd worked up a huge appetite.

Shortly after we got ready to sleep outside in our bivy bags. It was cold at first, but once you were in your sleeping bag it was really cosy. As soon as we had got into our bivy bags we heard a noise, halfway between a huge bang like someone had shot a gun and a cracking noise. It was the sound of the frozen sea ice moving with the tide being under so much pressure with the difference of tides. Was a beautiful sound and sight to see. It took me about an hour to get to sleep. I probably shouldn't have set up next to two large rocks, one was enough.

Sometime in the early morning I woke up to sheets of ice falling from the inside of the bivy bag right onto my face. This normally happens with the difference in temperature and from what I am lead to believe I should have left my bivy bag open more to breath with the wind.

Jen in the orange bivy and Marty in the read bivy.

After packing up we radioed into station and they told us the temperature overnight had fallen to -9.7deg cel. The lowest temperature for February that we've had.

We waited for the Helicopter to pick us up to take us to Woop Whoop. Yes that is a name of a place where our runway is on the plateau.

Flat Stanley's first appearance at Brookes Hut.

Me standing next to the frozen sea at Brookes Hut.

The black dolerite intrusions throughout the Vestfold hills.

As we left Brookes Hut the pilot gave us a nice view of the area that we had walked though. Amazing and so different from the sky.

Arriving at Woop Whoop we boarded a Hugglund to do our training. At first following way-points on the GPS while looking out the window, then once we were confident with the windows blacked out, only using the GPS to guide us.

Navigating with the GPS and looking out the windows.

We got trained on the blue hugglund which is behind the snow groomer.

Very weird driving basically blindfolded but very realistic that we could be in white-out conditions. White-out conditions are where you are unable to determine the horizon and there is no surface definition.

Chillin in the back of the Hugglund.... very bumpy at times!

Returning from Woop Whoop that night to a magnificent meal prepared by the chefs. Food had never tasted so good before! ha ha....

The next day our quad bike training was postponed due to high winds of around 30kts gusting to around 40kts. (55kms/hr gusting to 74kms/hr).

Stay tuned for the next update. If you have subscribed to receive the emails and you haven't received any email info@apsphotography.com.au Or any questions, send me an email.
~ Aaron.

Settling in....

Aaron Stanley February 13, 2016

Hello to everyone from a nice cold and sunny Davis Station.... Currently -6.6deg cel at 8am, we did actually have -7.2deg cel before, the oldest it's been here since my arrival. Still a bit short of the extremes of winter with an average of around -20 deg cel. I have had some time to explore around the station within in the station limits. We have around 20 elephant seals that have come up onto the beach, it's really cool to see them sleep all day, then on the odd occasion they would move to another position, fight amongst themselves and then sleep again. Most of the seals are around 3m in length.

I am slowly getting used to our 3 minute showers..... every 3 days! At first I was a bit worried about the idea, but when you get here and realise that things are very different with the atmosphere here then you just go with the flow. The humidity inside the buildings is normally below 20%. Because the air is so dry we are having to moistorise at least once a day to stop our skin from cracking and drying out. I believe the building humidifier will be turned on soon to only slightly improve the humidity to around 20%.

Slowly seeing a few more penguins around the station. There had been reports of a Emperor penguin just outside station limits. The Adelie penguins have been a little more active than the seals!

No Adelie penguins were hurt in the process of getting this photo!

On Wednesday I opened up the balloon shed doors to release a weather balloon and had to dodge the penguins to release it. Here are the first of many penguin photos that everyone has been eagerly awaiting. Due to some works on our facility we were using helium to fill the balloons and was great to get some good photo opportunities. Since then we
have changed back to using hydrogen which has lots of safety precautions around using it.

Me standing next to a 1200g weather balloon filled with helium, so no safety precautions were needed. We use these balloons for the Ozone measurements, reaching up to around 31km above the earth.

Me releasing the Ozone weather balloon filled with helium.

I will be going out next week to complete my field training. 3 days away from station learning how to survive in the extremes. Camping in a bivy bag should be an experience. I have done one night camping in a tent in Antarctica before during an expedition cruise with Gadventures so I can't wait to experience Antarctica again in such a great way. We'll also learn orienteering skills as when the compass points in any given direction we actually have to minus 80deg from that bearing to get the true bearing as the magnetic deviation is a huge difference compared to 14deg back at home. Once I have done this training I will be allowed outside the station limits to walk though the Vestfold hills and boating.

I am loving all the penguins here!

I think I can fly! Was awesome watching this! The adelie penguin landed really good and walked away!

I believe we are down to around 60 expeditioners on station. Some of the Canadian flying crew are due to fly home to Canada tonight via the south pole, Antarctic peninsula and up through South America. A trip that will take about 10 days. They will return at the end of winter to resume flying operations. We have had a visit from the Chinese station Zhongshan and the Indian station Bharati which is located about 120kms to the south west.

We also had a very special visitor, the director of the Australian Antarctic Division Nick Gales who flew down to Davis on the same flight as myself. Visiting the station to oversee the operations, new installations and planing for the future.

Nick (AAD Director), Alison (Winter station leader - Davis) talking with the Chinese visitors from Zhongshan.

We've had some spectacular sunsets. The sun has been setting around 11pm and rising just after 5am. It's only just starting to get dark around 2am. We are loosing 9 minutes of sunlight a day, so won't be long until we wont see the sun for 37 days! from the 3rd June.

Stay tuned for more updates....... ~ Aaron.

Busy times before winter sets in

Survival Field Training 15-17th Feb

Settling in....

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