Post the Forty-First

 

All Good Things Must Come to an End

or

Our Last Day in Antarctica

This is it, then.  Swim-Swim's and my final day in Horseshoe Harbour and therefore, by extension, Antarctica.  No more.  Finished.  All over. 

It was a day we both viewed with ambivalence.  On the one hand it was sad that the adventure was coming to a close.  On the other, we were both pleased to be heading home again after being away since mid-November.

(At least, I think Swim-Swim was pleased.  He plays his cards pretty close to his chest sometimes.  Toy penguins can be so inscrutable.)

The day began, as most days do, at dawn.  Rosy-fingered dawn, as Homer would have put it.  (And no, not Homer Simpson.  The Homer, of Iliad and Odyssey fame).

I was wondering why this brought to mind Homer.

And she was looking spectacularly beautiful on this day, was Dawn.

And then it dawned on me.

She was also up and about darned early.  I took these photos at about 3:15am o'clock in the morning.  Why was I up so early?  Would you believe it's because I'm dedicated to getting you the best possible photographs? 

No?

Yes, I suppose there's not been much evidence of that in the past, has there?



She might also be referred to as Icy-fingered Dawn on this brisk Mawson morning.  Have a look at the ice that formed on the mooring lines.

Lines of ice.  Not the kind that is of interest to the cops.

These were no dainty icicles but great big chunks of ice that weighed the lines down. 

And not only was it cold, but it was windy.  Quite windy indeed, as is evidenced by the sea spray that the wind whipped up which then froze against the rocks on West Arm.

Not something you see every day.  Except here.

No place for the faint of heart.  Nor was it any place for the insufficiently clothed as I was to discover as I stood out on the upper decks to get photographs.  It.  Was.  Cold!

How cold?  Well, let's turn our attention to the Aurora's weather wall (as I did when I returned to the cosy confines of the bridge).

Ah.  So that's why my face turned black and fell off.

If you look at the numbers across the top you'll see that the wind speed was in the vicinity of 38 knots, and that the air temperature was -8.4 C.  I think that's cold in anyone's language.

To put it into some perspective, that calculates to a wind chill of -21.1.

Cold.

A somewhat appropriate send-off from the frozen continent, don't you think?

Swim-Swim certainly felt so.  In fact he thought it was so entirely appropriate that we needed to leave immediately, and he hopped onto the controls to get the ship under way...

This penguin is a bit of a turkey.

Fortunately for us all Swim-Swim has not the slightest idea about how to drive the ship, since at the time the Aurora was still well and truly attached to the shore by means of the nine mooring lines.


Which, as you might imagine, needed to be released before the ship could go anywhere.  And in order for them to be released we needed to wait for the wind to drop to 15 knots or less.

And wait we did.  Until early afternoon.  As soon as the katabatic winds showed signs that they would abate to the necessary speeds, the mooring line teams (made up of the 2013 Mawson winterers) made their way out to the bollards.

A load of bollards.

There they waited patiently for the signal from the ship's crew to begin letting go the lines.  (Very patiently if you ask me.  Even though it was less windy and less cold, it still was cold and windy!)

In short order the call was made, and off came the lines.

Dropping lines - a good thing in this context.

As each line came off (and was hauled back on the ship at such speed that the buoy was dragged under the water) then the teams would move on to the next bollard.

The next bollard.

As soon as all lines were free the Skipper wasted no time in moving out of the harbour, and the farewelling began.  All along the upper decks expeditioners lined up to wave goodbye to the station and its new wintering crew. 

B'bye!  Have a nice winter!

Some of the departing Mawsonites had spent over 12 months at Mawson, so it was quite an emotional moment for them.

Likewise for the new wintering group who were farewelling us it must have been quite emotional.  Those who had been on the bollards gathered at the tip of West Arm to wave goodbye as we sailed past.  And then watched us desert them.  Leave them stranded at the bottom of the world, etc.  No big thing.

Marooned!  Deserted!  Abandoned!

And those who had been in the Zodiacs monitoring the process followed us to the mouth of the harbour to bid us a fond adieu.

At least, we think they were farewelling us.  They may have changed their minds about staying and were indeed trying to catch up to us.  Too bad if they were.

Once we were out of the harbour the ship picked up speed, and we began to leave Mawson and her new residents further and further behind.

Swim-Swim's and my focus was now on the journey back to Hobart.  As was the Skipper's, as he pointed the ship's northward - to Hobart.  Homeward bound!

Swim-Swim and I were just a little bit excited by the prospect.

So that's it, then.  No more Antarctica.  Antarctica all gone.  Ah, but the adventure is not yet over for Swim-Swim and me.  We have to traverse the Great Southern Ocean one more time before the journey is over.  And who knows what can happen?

Let's wait and sea see.



PS.  You've probably worked out for yourself that the very fact of this post being publish indicates that I am now back home in Hobart.  Which I am!

PPS.  However it's not quite the end yet.  Swim-Swim and I authored a few more posts while at sea, and we'll be releasing them into the wild over the course of the next week.


PPPS.  After that, however, all of the Antarctic related stuff will have been used up.  I will no longer be Jeff of the South.  Just Jeff of the A-Little-Bit-But-Not-Very-Far-South.  Which I don't think lends itself to the writing of very interesting blog posts.  So that will be the end.