Week 2: Arrival at Casey Station

After a few false starts over the previous week, we were finally bus-ed via "Ivan the Terra Bus" to Williams (Willie) Field to hop on a Herc (LC-30) to Casey Runway, a 4 1/2 hour trip away to Eastern Antarctica. Some of the group had been delayed by 3 weeks at this time, so you can imagine their relief to finally be on their way!

There were 42 new expeditioners descending on 18 wintering expeditioners, who had been isolated for the previous 9 months. It took 2 Herc trips, and fortunately the whole Casey crew who were at McMurdo made the trip in perfect flying weather.

While it was a culture shock for both the Wintering expeditioners and the Summering expeditioners we were made to feel very welcome with a warming lunch and hot drinks. Then began the station inductions with a walk around and exploring our surrounds that is Casey Station. Ali, the Winter Station Leader (SL), who has done 3 previous Winters with the Australian Antarctic Division and more with the Kiwis as a geologist and SL.

Ali showing us around station.

 
We were taken for a jolly another day by Scottie and Matt, 2 Winterers down to Shirley Island, which was a 30min walk from station - not that far, but the snow fall had been quite thick and proved tricky to walk through slowing our progress, especially for those of us who weren't used to walking in heavy snow boots through mid calf high snow.

Shirley Island is accessible across sea ice. Part of the safety measure with crossing sea ice, especially at either end of Summer is to measure its thickness and quality. This is done with a sea ice drill, which is hand held. The loose snow is cleared from the surface and then the drill is applied until you hit sea water. The drill shavings give you an idea of the quality of the sea ice and the measuring tape gives you the thickness. The ice can melt from the bottom up, so it doesn't matter how thick it is necessarily. The thickness needs to be at least 20cm to walk on, 40cm for a quad and 60cm for a Hagg to travel over of good quality ice. The 26th November heralds closure of sea ice travel for AAD staff in Antarctica, however, Casey has a weekly reprieve provided the sea ice remains in good condition to Shirley Island.



Drilling and measuring sea ice thickness with Gabe and Scottie.

 The incentive for crossing to Shirley Island was to visit the Adelie penguin rookery and Weddell seals that wallow on the sea ice after finding gaps in the ice. Skuas live near the penguins, preying on weakened Adelies, their eggs or chicks. They are opportunistic predators and will even attack humans if they feel that they are fair prey. You have to keep 5m from the wildlife, unless they choose to approach you. In the case of the Adelie's this is fairly often as they are very curious and will come over for a visit. We even had some wandering the ~2km into Casey station to check out the activities.

Curious Weddell seal.

Adelie penguins checking out the rock scene.

Tide crack in the sea ice - check it with your ice axe, so you don't fall into a slot!




 

Another day on station allowed for a short climb up Reeve's Hill, named in honour of Geoffrey Reeve, who succumbed to hypothermia after becoming lost in a blizzard out at Robinson's Ridge in August 1979.





Wednesday coincided with my birthday and it was wonderful to be able to spend it with my new friends with lots of well wishes from afar and my new home. Eddie, the Wintering chef was kind in offering to make me a birthday cake of my choosing - cheesecake with berry swirl on chocolate biscuit base! Yummmm!!! I shared the day with Ian the plumber who had 20 Bakewell tarts made for him. It was an awesome day.

We topped off the night by playing "Cards Against Humanity", which set the tone for the evening. Lots of inappropriate adult jokes and hysteria ensued on a number of occasions with peoples' sense of humour being finely tuned.

I'm going to enjoy being a part of this community!