Feb 28 - At last an Aurora

Everyone asks about the Auroras and how spectacular they looked, but
of course when you go to Antarctica during the summer, its is almost
always light and since you only see an Aurora when it's dark, we
didn't see any over the summer.

I was hoping that in the last week or two at Mawson, when we had a
few hours of darkness each night, that we might get lucky, but the
first time was tonight, partly because the maximal Aurora visibility
is actually a little way further north, which of course, has more
darkness.

(see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Aurora_australis_20050911.jpg )

In 1831, John Biscoe, captain of the ship Tula, when surrounded by
icebergs at the Antarctic Circle wrote:

"Nearly the whole night the Aurora Australis showed the most
brilliant appearance, at times rolling itself over our heads in a
beautiful column, then as suddenly forming itself as the unrolled
fringe of a curtain, and again suddenly shooting to the form of a
serpent and at times appearing not many yards above us; it was
decidedly transacted in our own atmosphere, and was without exception
the grandest phenomenon of nature of its kind I have ever witnessed".

By way of contrast, I wrote:

"At about midnight, a few faint aurora was visible, although you
really had to stand in the dark for 5 minutes before your eyes
adapted enough to be able to see it. Then a faint green smudge could
be made out, eventually becoming more distinct. It fluctuates over
minutes, sometimes just a patch in the sky like green city lights
shining onto clouds, and then 15 minutes later, extending halfway
across the sky like a gigantic ribbon, which suddenly fades away
again over a couple of minutes."

The photographs were never going to be very good, since the aurora
was so faint and time exposures on a moving boat will blur out all
the details, but you can get an idea of what it looked like from up
on the top of the bridge, where it was minus 6 degrees and windy.
You can see how the boat's movement over the 30 second time exposure
has made nice little patterns out of the stars.

Feb 9 - Boating in the bergs

Now that the sea ice has gone, we can get our boats out and go for a
cruise out amongst the islands - and the icebergs. After dinner we
rugged up in several layers of fleece, then the waterproof immersion
suits, then a flotation jacket, gloves, 2 beanies and headed out - it
was about -2 and a slight breeze. After a couple hours of cruising
about we returned, about 10 pm just before sunset, but by then the
wind had picked up - nearly 20 knots, and minus 6, so by the time we
got back home I couldn't feel my fingers any more. Awful. I hate
boating.

Feb 5 - Some Weddell Seals

As the sea-ice has melted and retreated in the last few weeks, so we
are seeing more seals. Previously they had been living at the ice-
edge, with a few here and there where there is a crack in the ice
that they can come out of to breathe and to loll about on the ice,
but now they are everywhere. I counted 30 on the small patch of ice
just past the radio towers - about 2 minutes walk from the main red
shed of the station.

They have a very nice spotted light grey fur and generally lie about
in the sun barely moving for hours. Tonight after dinner, it was
overcast and cold but I went for a short walk and very nearly walked
right into some. One seemed to be sleeping underwater - it was
bobbing about, with only a small part of its back above the water's
surface, and the swell in the sea was rocking it back and forth,
knocking it gently into the rocks, and every 10 minutes it would
stick its head out to breathe for a minute or two, then went back
underneath, completely oblivious of me sitting there watching.

Feb 5 - A bit of practice surgery

In the unlikely event that someone is seriously ill or injured and
needs an operation, then of course the only medically trained person
at Mawson is the single doctor (that's me).

In order to have some assistants, 4 of the expeditioners have had 2
weeks of training at Hobart Hospital before we left, learning how to
be anaesthetic nurses or theatre nurses. By the end of that two
weeks, they had done a marvellous job and we ran through a pretend-
operation which went very well, and even made the TV news that night
in Tasmania.

That was 4 months ago, so as a refresher, we did another mock
operation today in the Mawson medical facility. One of our dodgy
expeditioners needed an operation (he had accidentally swallowed one
of his crampons), so we prepared him for theatre, got all the
equipment ready and then anaesthetised him and cut him up. It was a
bit of a rush job, as we needed to be done in time for lunch but I
still found time to take out his spleen and kidney as well, just for
good measure.

From left we have Matt, the IT guy, then Jasmine the chef, the
victim is Hully, who has been teaching us how to survive in the great
outdoors, then me and on the right is Nathan, one of the
electricians. The photographer is Andrew, the met observer, whose job
here was to be scout nurse.

We may not have been the slickest surgical team in the world, but I
think I've seen worse...

p