Post the Forty-Second (Supplemental)

There is not really enough material here to warrant a whole blog post by itself.  Not a whole post.  Not really even a railing.  More of a picket, really.

So this is a blog picket.



I have in the past always reported on activities that we have undertaken to ensure our survival.  I dunno - for some reason such activities seem to have some aura of importance, and are therefore worthy of sharing with you.

Today's blog picket is of a repeat performance of one such activity: the emergency muster.

As I believe I may have mentioned in a previous post, each time the Aurora leaves port with a new herd of sheep collection of passengers an emergency drill is conducted.  This guarantees that everyone knows how to not be dead.  More or less.

Most of us have already been through the process multiple times, but it can't hurt to keep practising, can it?  After all, if by chance one should stop being alive, it's very difficult to start again.  Far better to just keep practising surviving, no?

So let's begin with that essential piece of kit when it comes to surviving on the Aurora Australis during an emergency muster - the Survival Bag.

A bag that is stuffed full of survival.

This particular survival bag is my survival bag.  Do you know how I can tell, boys and girls?

Yes, that's right, I have put an identifying mark on it.   A small piece of plastic strip sticking out of the top left hand corner.  That clearly marks this bag as mine so that it will not get mixed up with anyone else's!  I am a clever lad, aren't I?

The survival bag contains all the items of kit issued to us by the Antarctic Division that are essential to not being killed by the harsh conditions.  3 distinct layers of clothing, along with balaclavas, snow goggles, boot chains, boots (for putting the boot chains on), gloves, mittens and opera tickets.

As a part of the exercise we were required to wear some of our survival gear and have the rest with us.  This was in order to prove to everyone else that we were alive and that, by golly, we had no intention of stopping!



So, time to get the exercise under way.

The ship's crew combined this exercise with a pretend fire in the engine room, so that they could practise pretending to put it out.  This was a great idea, as it enabled them to pretend to have fire-fighting skills, and to pretend to hone those skills.  And I for one pretended to be comforted by that.

They did the exercise in the real engine room, though, since the ship doesn't have a pretend engine room.


Anyway...

The ship's siren and bells sounded, and we all pretended to be taken by surprise, and got into our survival gear, grabbed our survival bags and gathered on the helideck to await a roll call.

Pretending we were happy to be there.

The weather was pretty ooky, actually.  On a couple of occasions we were showered with sea spray which was, unfortunately, not pretend.  Had any of us actually been on fire though, I'm sure it would have been very welcome.

I took this photo to demonstrate how cold and ooky the weather actually was.

Cold.  And ooky.

 As I am sure you're aware, the presence of enormous chunks of ice in the water indicates that the temperatures are quite low.  Fortunately for us we had our survival bags!


So, the roll was called (just to make sure that no-one had sneakily died since the beginning of the exercise) and it turned out we were all there.  What a relief, eh?

We were all very keen to return to our very important novels/bunks/card games/cups of coffee and get out of the ooky weather.  However we were forced to wait on the helideck for 20 minutes longer.

There's a fire, is there?  May we have some?  Please?

Why?  Well it turns out that the pesky fire in the engine room was still pretending to burn.  So the crew were forced to pretend a bit harder and for a bit longer to put it out.  Eventually they mustered all of their powers of visualisation and role-play, and the danger was averted.  Phew!

Meanwhile, we on the helideck were pretending to remain in high spirits about it.

Here is Joseph, doing a reasonable facsimile of amusement.

Reasonable.

And just to demonstrate collegiality, Scott here was also providing his impression of taking it all in his stride.

Scott of the Antarctic.  Not the Scott of the Antarctic, mind you.  That one is dead.  This one is not. 

And at that point I put away the camera.  The sea spray was stubbornly remaining genuine, and I didn't want the camera damaged.

So you'll just have to take my word for it that we all survived with the utmost good humour.  We did, though.

And that's it for your blog picket.  Next time I promise to deliver a whole post.  Really.