Davis Midwinter 2012: The Swim

Before everyone starts giving me grief, I shall say it right now, I did NOT do the Midwinter Swim. I wanted to do the Midwinter Swim, but certain circumstances prevented me from doing so. Boo, hissss, excuses, I hear someone in the audience say? My excuse is, it was the second day of my period, and as all of my 2nd-day periods go, it was heavy. But what about tampons??? I hear another unbelieving cynic shriek from behind the crowd (See, I had thought of all these things beforehand). To that I say, TSS (Toxic Shock Syndrome to the unknowing) - I know the chances are slim to almost-none, but I'm not about to take such risks while I'm in the middle of nowhere and my medical team consists of a (proper) Doctor, a carpenter, an electrician, a diesel mechanic and a weather observer (all supposed nurses). Thanks but no thanks, I will pass on that tampon. At the end of the day, I weighed my pros (Antarctica, once-in-a-lifetime, pub bragging-rights, personal glory) and cons (blood, -18oC air temperature and -2oC water temperature, mess, stomach cramps, TSS, cold-induced heart failure, sticking foreign objects into places they shouldn't go, blood, cold-induced fainting, changing out of mess, blood, blood and blood) and decided that the effort involved in coordinating a 10-second in-and-out dip was just not worth the end result. So there, I did NOT swim on Midwinter's day.

Now that we have this out of the way, let's move on to the important stuff i.e. what constitutes a Midwinter Swim, HOW to do a Midwinter swim and the many reactions exhibited by our brave, brave band of 65th ANARE winterers to swimming in a -2oC ocean.

Procuring a Pool

The night before, the diesos of station and sole chippy were down by the sea-ice chopping out a hole through the 1-meter thick sea-ice that measured 2 x 2 meters. All was good and dandy, and by the next morning, we had The Davis Riviera Rest & Relax Sea Bath and Plunge Pool. As previously mentioned, air temperature was an eye-blistering -18oC, so grease ice will inevitably form at the water-air interface. Thus, the need for a pool boy to constantly agitate the water and scoop away bits of ice from the surface. Because, as you know, no one likes jumping into a bath with floaty bits of ice.



Pre-swim Bravado 



Yeah.

Entering the Pool

A ladder was provided, most people used it, a few did not.



The Plunge

Most swimmers did it the easy way: letting go of the ladder, eyes shut, straight in, head under water, straight out. One decided on doing some backstrokes and underwater dives. Whatever rocks their boat, I guess.




The Re-emergence

The highlight of my day as photographer for the swimmers. Watching them pop out of the water was the best affirmation I could have, knowing that I had made the right choice. It is anything as simple as climbing up the ladder from whence they went down, but of course, there are others that will deviate from the norm.



Our Deputy Station Leader, also Head Weather Observer and Davis-resident McGuyver realises that he only needs a pair of screwdrivers to get him out of the water. It served him well too.

Ok, so after most of station completed the swim (only 4 out of 21 did not swim; myself, the Chef, another electrician, and our Trades manager, who broke his ankle nearly 10 weeks ago and was told by the doctor explicitly NO SWIMMING), everyone headed back up to where it was nice and warm and prepared to change into our finery for the impending Formal Dinner. Standby...

Davis Midwinter 2012: The Morning Brunch

Okay, let the knuckle-cracking ensue, I am in a bid to actually get ALL the Midwinter postings out of the way by the end of the week. There is much work to be done so we shall tarry no longer. I'm gonna break the day down into their individual components (because, as much as I am trying to be productive and hardworking, the idea of fitting the whole day in one post is ludicrous, undoable and frankly, is giving me a headache even as I think about it). Let us start with Midwinter's Morning, then, shall we?

My day started at 7.45 a.m. Yes I know, right? I was helping out with the setting up of our formal dinner table and, once we were done, I took a step back and couldn't believe what we had accomplished. I fairly reckon that I am now qualified to work at the best and top eateries and hotels.



After the setting up of the tables, we went upstairs and had an absolutely delicious brunch prepared for us by our Chef Brigid.



On the menu were:

Bircher muesli with the works

Stewed winter fruits 

(i.e. dried figs, apples, apricots and peaches that were rehydrated in syrup mmmm)

Summer fruit platter 

(lychees, mangoes, kiwi fruit, blueberries, raspberries, mandarin orange slices..saay whaaaaat??)

Scrambled eggs, bacon,sausages

Tomatoes, baked beans, mushrooms, hash browns

A platter of smoked salmon

A whole leg of smoked ham

A selection of danish pastries

Blueberry muffins

Banana bread

A selection of breads (walnut, fruit, sourdough)

Home made jams (Apricot, marmalade, fig)

Banana smoothie and various fruit juices

COFFEE AND TEA!

Yes, that's right, THAT WAS ALL WE HAD FOR BRUNCH. I couldn't believe how much food I was bringing up to the table and had to keep reminding myself that this was just brunch, it's just brunch, don't panic, we still have dinner in 6 hours' time.



Everyone tucked in and I forced (ok la, forced sounds so bad, rather, I compelled) myself to try one of everything (except for the baked beans because I fucking hate that stuff why would anyone eat that???). By the end of brunch, I felt like I was gestating a little food baby and it made me feel quite contented yet depressed at the same time fml.



After the brunch, there was much groaning and moaning and rubbing of bellies after which everyone cleaned up and we went down to the sea-ice for a spot of Midwinter swimming! Standby...

So, yesterday was our Midwinter Festival and today is our Post-Revelry Hangover-Recovery Day. Weirdly enough though, my road to post-revelry hangover-recovery wasn't as intense as I thought it would be. Last night, I went to bed with a pounding headache at 3 in the morning. I was sure that all those glasses of water I had quaffed prior to slumping into bed wouldn't help one bit, because, oh my God, this headache feels like it has a mean streak in it, sanctioned by the collective forces of all that is evil and wrong in this world.

Although I'm not exactly fresh as a daisy this morning, nevertheless, I would say that I am Hangover-free. WIN!

Anyway, I'll put up a decent post about what really happened during our Midwinter festivities soon and leave you with a short run-down of what occured:

I woke up rather early on the day itself and helped out with setting the table for our formal dinner. We then had a huge brunch that was absolutely laden with all things yummy. After brunch, we went down to the sea-ice where a hole had been dug and a majority of crazy people (myself NOT included) went for a dip. Later, it was time to change into our fineries and the formal dinner commenced, with MORE yummy food! To sum up what Midwinter's was in three words, it will be Food, Alcohol and Food (and Alcohol).

Emperor Penguin: A study

Hello again! With only 3 days to go before The Great Davis Mid-Winter Festival, I figured it would do me good to post up some pictures that I've wanted to for so long but never got around to. If I didn't do it now, it'll probably never come up, as I forsee myself moving onto posting about midwinter's etc etc you get my drift.

Anyway, for the last month or so, I've been doing weekly seawater sampling trips out on the sea-ice. We had to make sure that the sea-ice was thick enough (> 60cms) before we were allowed to take a Haggslund out on to it (a Haggslund is sort of like a big 4-wheel-drive van capable of travelling through snow and ice). On our very first seawater sampling trip out (which was back in early May, HAH!) we were lucky enough to have spotted an Emperor penguin. These little dudes are hard to come by nowadays, but we're always keeping our eyes peeled out for them. As it is, no one has seen another Empie since, so fingers crossed, another will trundle its way across our paths soon enough.








Have you ever felt an overwhelming urge to pat a penguin before? I have, and I was left feeling disappointed when it didn't respond to my wiggling fingers, pseudo-penguin cooing noises and my Jedi-Knight penetrating stare that clearly sent out 'COME TO ME' signals.

The Half-Year Mark

June June June! How is it that it is already June?? Anyway, this will be a relatively short update, hopefully with a few photos thrown into the mix to spice things up.

A few days ago, all of us on station saw the sun for the last time. A few of the expeditioners made a fuss about it (the good kind) by sitting out on the helipad watching it set behind the Vestfold Hills with a beer in hand. However, because I am soft and weak, and I have also seen the sun rise and sun set many-a-times for the last 26 years, this occasion did not quite stir the 'solar longing' in me. I may or may not regret my actions at snubbing the sun, now that it has done its disappearing act for the next 6-8 weeks, but only time will tell. On the other hand, though, we've been getting absolutely FANTASTIC moonrises! I've always been more of a night-walker than a day-worshipper anyway, meh.


LEGOtown on a crisp Antarctic evening (the time would have been about 3pm?)

Also, we've had some major snowfalls around station over the weekend, the weather was even kind enough to muster up a blizzard. A REAL ANTARCTIC BLIZZARD. The winds raged for more than 24 hours at around 60knots (which converts to about 120km/ph), visibility was cut down to mere meters and I could feel our Living Quarters building shake with the storm. It was amazing. The next morning, everything was covered in white as far as the eye could see. And because we don't have much light anymore, surface definition was all but lost and I walked head-first into a huge snowdrift while making my way to the aquarium. It was amazing.


 Papa dozer and baby dozer hard at work shovelling all the accumulated snow away and turning the landscape of station back to the familiar 'Mine Site' variety.

Anyway, the station is still ticking on. I hardly bat an eyelid now when I walk out into the wilderness and the thermometer says that it is -27.5 degrees Celcius. Hell, if it's anything warmer than -30 d C, I usually treat it as a good day and it becomes a mini-win for me. There are days where it takes me a lot to muster up enough will power and motivation to even get out of bed. I blame it on the darkness and the cold and the futility of trying to think that mere humans can even begin to tame this harsh frontier, but those days are few and far between. We're not taming anything, all of us are here because we like to think we can.

While walking down to work in the dark this morning with an electrician (colloquially known as a Sparkie), we had a conversation that ran kinda like this:

Sparkie: Are you glad you stayed for winter?
Me: (Pauses). Yes, yes I'm glad I stayed for winter. Are you glad you stayed for winter?
Sparkie: (Pauses). Yes, I'm glad I stayed for winter.


I reached my 26th birthday and all I got was this lousy Black Forest Cake (actually no, it wasn't lousy, it was fan-fucking-tastic!)