Long overdue, including the return of the sun!

It's been quite some time since my last post and a lot of things have happened since then....

Watts Hut

The last weekend of July some of us went out to explore Watts Hut and the surrounding areas to the South East of our recreational limits. Delaying our trip by a couple of hours due to blowing snow and visibility reduced to about 1km at times. We headed off once the winds dropped off and onto the sea ice of Prydz Bay. Heading back inland through the Eills Narrows where a huge amount of water passes through a narrow point having an area of open water all year round. We stopped here on the way back to have a look at the old weather station and was great to hear the sound of flowing water. It's been about 4 or so months now since we'd heard any sounds of the sea. Apart form the tide crack where the movement of the tide makes the ice creek and make funny noises. We arrived at Watts Hut in the late afternoon and settled in for the night. Aurora's lighting up the night skies.

The next morning we headed up Lake Druzhby, Crooked Lake and on to Grimma Gorge. It was fantastic to see some fresh water lakes frozen, these are crystal clear lakes as you'll see in some of my photos. We walked a few hundred meters down the gorge to a small frozen waterfall. While it was great to see, it was very small! Exploring the area further we walked to a nearby hill to get some better views of the Sorsdal Glacier.

As if that was not spectacular enough, then the walk to the top of Boulder Hill at 157m tall was going to be even better. It took a while to climb and the wind was howling through even though it looked like a nice beautiful sunny day.... Looks can be deceiving. We reached the top and only stayed a few minutes to get a few photos as the wind chill was horrendous. Once the group photo was taken we scampered down the front face of boulder hill to the Hagg which awaited us at the bottom. From the top of Boulder Hill you could see right across the whole Vestfold Hills, up onto the plateau (Antarctica's ice cap) and across the stunning Sorsdal Glacier. It really puts into perspective where we are when you see the true Antarctica.

 

On the way back to Watts Hut we stopped at the Bolde camp site, where there is emergency tents and food to access if needed. Then off to Crooked Lake Apple for a quick look. That night we went out onto the lake in front of the hut and got some magnificent photos with the lake lit up with lights not to mention the aurora overhead. The next morning we started the trek back to station after swapping out some fuel drums at the hut. Visiting Marine Plain Apples and a brief look at Burton Lake from a distance. The are around Burton Lake is an Antarctic Specially Protected Area ASPA 143 

 

Bandits hut

I recently returned from a weekend away at Bandits hut which is approximately 25kms from Davis Station. We left on Saturday and went out onto the sea ice with the Hugglund following a GPS route that would take us to our destination. Although when there are ice bergs frozen in the sea ice you have to take a detour every now and then. We passed through a land crossing called Pioneer Crossing and was fantastic to get a birds eye view of where we'd just come from and where we were heading. We took a detour to Lichen Lake which was frozen over. Just walking to the lake was an adventure. Once at the lake we walked half way across it to admire the rock formations and ice cliffs. We also came across the Lichen's on the rocks. We only saw a small amount as everywhere was covered in snow. 

The next day we headed off to Sir Hubert Wilkins carin at Walkabout Rocks. 

 

Voting

As the Antarctic Returning Officer for the Australian Electoral Commission I was in charge of conducting the voting for the 2016 Australian federal election. There was a lot of hype in the media about us being able to vote in Antarctica. The coverage was worldwide. We had set up a voting booth the week before to take some photos for the media. On voting day the weather conditions were not the best, so we set up a polar pyramid tent to vote in. The day was a success and votes tallied and rang through the next day being overseen by an assistant returning officer.  

 

Sun returns

Well..... we waited.... and waited.... for the return of the sun. It did not show on the day as cloud impeded our views of the horizon. However after 48 days we finally saw the sun. It was one of those lifetime moments I'll never forget. Something we take for granted back home. Something you expect to see almost every day of the year (weather permitting). Now we are heading to 24hr daylight. On the 2nd Oct we'll officially have no "Night". Only astronomical twilight for a few hours before that eventually disappears too.

 

Walk to the south pole

Davis station finally made it to the south pole, without greatly breaking any of the guidelines set. The goal was to do a "virtual" walk to the south pole. From Davis station that would be approximately 2500kms. A team of 10 of us set off on the 1st of July. Over the next month we'd do 10kms per day per person in the gym on the bike, rowing or treadmill. Whilst the other teams reached the south pole well ahead of schedule Davis station reached the south pole on the last day of the month as expected to be welcomed by Robert Schwarz holding a welcoming sign for us. It's amazing what you can organise with very little time and limited communication. Thank you to Robert for the tremendous efforts he went to get these photos. Much appreciated and was like we were actually there! I wish we were..... 

Special Clouds

We've seen some Polar Stratospheric clouds the last few weeks. These are formed at high altitudes around 15-25kms above. 

Blizzards

We've experienced 6 blizzards now this winter as of 17th September. Not as many as the other stations as we are protected by the Vestfold Hills. Our last blizzard on the 11th & 12th of September was quite wild. While we didn't experience any wind gusts above our previous records we did get higher sustained winds. With sustained winds over 60kts (111kms/hr) we went into the code red travel conditions on two occasions for the first time this season. Requiring permission to travel outside by the station leader and travel in pairs, limited to essential travel only.

Stay updated with "This week at Davis" for all the latest news what's been happening around station! More blogs to come......

Darkness descends, Sea ice & a special visitor at the station!

There has been a lot of hype around out last sunset and the sun rising 38 days later! A couple of days before this spectacular I went out to capture what would be our second last sunrise and sun set that we'd see as it was a relatively clear night/day. My time lapse started at 10am and continued through until 7pm. Sun rise was at 1:07pm and sunset at 2:24pm just 1 hour and 17 minutes of sunlight. Was wonderful to have an aurora show before the light from the sun took over the skies. 

Three days later on the 2nd June, the sun would rise and set for the last time. We would then not see the sun for 38 days! The majority of the expeditioners gathered for a BBQ lunch followed by a viewing on the heli-hut platform. The sun did rise at 1:34pm but unfortunately the cloud cover was too thick to see the sun, however illuminating them from below. Twenty four minutes later at 1:58pm the sun set for the last time and darkness descended across the land. Over the 38 days we will see some light, but the sun will be below the horizon the whole time.

15 of the 16 expeditioners await to see the last glimpse of the sun.

As the darkness has descended our aurora sighting potential has sky rocketed! I'll le the photos do the talking, but lets just say that 3 days non stop aurora activity as pretty cool. This was due to a equatorial coronal hole on the sun interacting with the earths atmosphere.

 

There has been a lot of activity going on here the last few weeks now that the sea ice is open for vehicle travel. We'd been allowed to travel by foot, the sea ice had to be at least 200mm thick. For quads the sea ice must be at least 400mm thick. And for our hugglands the sea ice must be atl least 600mm thick. At the moment we are measuring anywhere around 780mm to over 1m thick! 

Some people have been going out on trips to the huts in the field, others have been doing some day trips. 

Ladge our winter scientist has been installing some equipment in the sea ice just off station. I was lucky to be asked to go out and help him during the week. This would be my first time on the sea ice in a Huggland. It was only a few months ago that there were boats in the water and you could hears the sounds of waves crashing onto the beach. To think that we were now driving a heavy piece of machinery out on the sea ice was weird yet amazing. Approximately 1km off station we stopped and Ladge downloaded some data and did some sea ice drilling.

When one of the holes was drilled and we removed the drill I saw a little Krill come up and onto the sea ice. I snapped a quick photo before returning it to the sea. 

View of the station out on the sea ice. Almost hard to imagine a few months ago it was all open water!

The other day Goldie and I went out on the sea ice on the quad bikes to capture the sun setting amongst the ice bergs. I had also seen that the moon was due to set 15 minutes after the sun so would also provide an excellent opportunity for photos. This would my first time on the sea ice with the quads and what a fun experience it was. Following the predetermined marked drilled route we set off for the ice bergs in Prydz bay. 

Sunset amongst the icebergs. Original photo 4.1m x 1m

Moon skimming along the top of the ice bergs. Original photo 4.7m x 1m

Moon setting between the ice bergs. Original photo 3.7m x 0.9m

We had a very special visitor to the station this week. Well there were 3 Emperor penguins just next to the pier on the sea ice. The call came through on the radio just as a meeting was about to begin..... as I ran out of the meeting the station leader was yelling at me to return, but there was no stopping me from seeing my first Emperor penguin! After a brief look out the window we spotted the three Emperor penguins. Unfortunately the meeting took priority and after the meeting I ran back to the window to only spot one left. So off it was to retrieve my camera and borrow someone's camera battery as both of mine were not readily accessible. A group of three of us ran down the road leading to the pier to be greeted with this majestic animal. 

Remember to check out "This week at Davis" to keep up to date on all the station activities. Updated every Friday. 

Also check out Absolute Antarctica a blog by Goldie one of our wintering expeditioners.

 

Davis Station is a buzz!

It's been almost 1 month since my last update..... lots of things have been happening here...

Once again the auroras have been putting on some magnificent light shows. I'm still amazed every time I see an aurora. No two auroras are ever the same. I've put together a couple of time lapses, this first one was looking SSW towards the plateau and the sorsdal glacier. The moon rose so gracefully over the plateau and added another dimension to the photos. You'll see in the first few seconds a satellite near the plateau moving in an upwards direction. 

The other night I went out photographing the aurora when the temperatures fell to -31.7 degrees Celsius! I was outside for about 2 1/2 hours before my camera froze over. Not to mention my eyelids froze together on at least 3 occasions.... 

However I did manage to get a few nice photos :)

And a few days later..... Love this photo where the aurora crosses over the milky-way!

We've been getting more amazing sunsets here.... I'll let the photos do the talking....

The days are getting shorter and we're seeing less of the sun. Some days we don't see the sun at all being hidden behind the clouds, and other days when we do it's skimming across the horizon, causing chaos with the sun glare, almost like driving in peak hour traffic, without the traffic! 

Anzac Day

We commemorated Anzac day on April 25th with a simple ceremony at sunrise at 1003am. Followed by a gunfire brunch followed by an hour of two up. A very unique place to be on Anzac day and one to remember.

Last two elephant seals.

The last two elephant seals departed station in mid April. Almost unimaginable seeing 80 odd seals here in the summer dwindle down to only two. Off to swim in the depths of the ocean, they will return to Davis station and surrounding areas towards the end of the year.

STORMS IN ANTARCTICA? YES!

I was amazed the other day to see some real stormy clouds in Antarctica this week (7th May). I'd never thought I'd see a storm that I'l be excited about, other than blizzards. We'd just had some snowfall and some soft hail pellets earlier that morning. The temperatures were hovering around -5 degrees Celsius. I could see the stormy clouds developing over the plateau and knew that the winds were going in increase later in the afternoon. It was amazing to see the mammatus clouds, stirred up by the strong winds and precipitation. Areas of the cloud had that greenish tinge which is a sign of hail. At times the wind was strong enough to cause blowing snow above 2m up at the plateau and kinda looked like some brief tornado spin-ups, even though I knew it wasn't. As the storm clouds approached and the wind increased the temperature also increased to around -3 degrees Celsius. If that was not enough, shortly after 4pm I had actually witnessed rain..... Yes you heard right... RAIN, which is not very common in Antarctica due to the temperatures. However under certain conditions it can rain here. There were only a few drops mixed in with the snow and soft hail pallets, I had to think twice and ask myself am I imagining things?

Soft hail measuring around 3-4mm in diameter.

Blue Bergs

I thought it was about time to do some exploring around station limits. So off to the North Eastern perimeter to climb some hills which are only 30m above sea level and approximately 1km from Davis Station along Dingle Road. I was wanting to get some photos of the blue icebergs (Blue bergs) out in the frozen sea ice. These blue bergs form from in different ways. The easiest is the reflection off the clouds, as in this case the clouds were a dark grey/blue. Also the bergs had less air content ie: the ice had been compressed. This happens as the ice flows down a glacier and then bits break off into the ocean. It provided a great perspective of the icebergs and the station from afar. 

View across Davis station on the left onto Prydz Bay, Garden Island in the middle (49m high), Anchorage Island (53m) with Bluff Island (65m). Approx 1km from station

Marchants Landing.

I went for a walk out to Marchants Landing, which is about 1km from station. Within station limits it's a good place to get away from station life and chill for a few hours. Amazing what you'll find out there too. I was told about the mummified seals and was truly amazed to see just how preserved some of the deceased seals were. It is sad to see these seals in their final resting place, but once again that's life and part of real Antarctica.

This week at Davis

Once again make sure you check out "This week at Davis" which is updated every Friday with photos and stories from our expeditioners.

Pretzel nook

Special mention goes to our Summer chef that has returned back home and has started making his world famous pretzels. Check out his website Pretzel Nook for further information on where to buy these award winning pretzels! The pretzel nook's facebook page can also be found here....