Polar Radar for Ice Sheet Measurements

Sunday 5 November 2000
Hello all

Gordon was restless last night and woke up about 0330 and decided we should as well. So at 0455 on a Sunday, we’ve had a nice cup of tea, put the laundry on, tidied up some paperwork, re-read a couple of emails.

We stopped at 0545 for a shower and change, an 0630 meeting with Chief Mate and Bosun, an 0730 meeting with Chief Pilot and Captain and a radio Sked with Voyage Leader who is at Mawson, Breakfast at 0745, an 0800 start on work with cargo etc.

Helicopter operations were delayed this morning due to mechanical problems but were fixed and completed the four flights necessary to complete our operations here.

The weather? Excellent. Flying operations to Mawson were completed at 1425 and the ship departed the Fly off position at 1430 and started heading north for another buoy deployment and Heard Island and our next major Operation - probably another six days.

We have covered our activties here in the special report "Mawson Operations".

By the way, the last passenger to Mawson, on the last flight was Stay. Stay? Read about him in the special report "STAY Antarctic Guide Dog".

We are now down to ten expeditioners plus the 21 crew. We were only meant to have nine expeditioners at this stage but one who was meant to stay at Davis for the summer has had to cut short his trip and is now coming back to Australia with us.

Monday 6 November 2000
The ship stopped for approximately six hours overnight due to poor visibility. This was a good opportunity to reflect on travelling through ice and how the ship copes with it – see the special report "Icebreaking".

Safety muster held this morning. We made good progress yesterday afternoon and evening in heavy ice but are now in poor visibility conditions. Glad flying completed yesterday!! It is very quiet onboard.