TAKING A BATH
Taking a bath sounds easy but it's not. Water - that means either
melting snow and ice or trekking over the this little lake. We are
using the lake because melting ice and snow uses up fuel and we
must conserve fuel as much as we can. It isn't a long walk to the
lake but the other day Margie took a bad fall between the hut and
Boat Harbour. She fell into a mini crevasse about sixty centimetres
deep and hurt her elbow, knee and hip. She has some real good
colours coming out now and a lump on her elbow the size of an egg.
Walking around on ice every day is strange for a woman from
Queensland. She's only ever done it once before and that was in the
Snowy Mountains last winter do some training for this expedition.
Since the fall we wear our crampons every time we go out walking.
(Crampons are mountaineering gear, they are like a set of nails
that you strap on over your boots.) So, I was telling you about
getting ready to take this bath. Trek to the lake, chop a hole in
the ice. Scoop out water with a bucket, take it back to the hut,
heat it up. Here comes the good part, go out into the annex, it's a
little room sort of a back porch that is like our toilet/bathroom.
It was zero degrees in the annex. Take off all our clothes, get
into the shower (a big plastic bucket fitted with a shower
curtain). One stands in the shower while the other pours warm water
over you from a coffee mug. Let me tell you, baths are quick when
it's zero degrees.CREW GOES EXPLORING The weather here is strange.
It can blow really hard then just stop. The day before the crew
left they wanted to go and have a look at some crevasses up on the
ice plateau. So three of them went off, David, Jay and Wade. We
were down he working and we watched them go. You can see for miles.
Later on I noticed one figure coming down off the plateau. I'm a
safety freak and I told them that they had to stay together.
Anything can happen here and I'm the expedition leader. I'm
responsible for them and their lives. So when I saw one coming back
alone and running, I immediately thought there was an emergency. I
remembered the chilling account in Mawson's diaries of the day they
lost Ninnis. They were travelling with two sleds and dog teams.
Mawson crossed a crevasse and warned Ninnis. When he turned around
Ninnis was gone. Mawson and Mertz went over near the crevasse. The
snow had given away. Ninnis and his dog team were lost. I tried to
stop thinking about that terrible accident. I couldn't. Seeing that
lone figure running down the slope I felt worried. I imagined one
crew must have fallen into a crevasse, the other was standing by
and the third was coming back to get help. We started pulled out
rescue stuff but then I saw the lone figure fall. Then he didn't
get up for two or three minutes. I couldn't wait. I had my crampons
on so off I went. It was David. He was coming back because he broke
a crampon, the others were fine. I felt relieved.
ICEBREAKER ARRIVES WITH TOURISTS
On Saturday the 28th of January the 18,000 tonne Russian
icebreaker, Kaptain Khlebnikov, arrived in Commonwealth Bay. The
katabatics were blowing and we didn't think they'd be able to come
ashore. But the wind died and one hundred tourists came ashore to
see the penguins and to have a look at Mawson's Hut. We had asked
the Kaptain Khlebnikov to transport some frozen meat for us and
they had been unable to drop it off when they came by in early
January. We had given up hope and were resigned to eating the food
we brought along on "Spirit of Sydney." So it was a real treat to
get the extra supplies. Our crew stayed and helped up unload and
stow the cases of food. We buried them deep in the snow to keep
them frozen.
OUR FIRST BLIZZARD 1 FEBRUARY 1995
Last night we got one hour of sleep. We are having a blizzard. It
is serious. The wind is gusting to 200 kilometres per hour (110
knots). It started blowing on Sunday night and we noticed the walls
on the back of the hut were flexing a bit so we bolted some timber
on the outside on Monday but I didn't do it on the opposite wall,
the one that faces southeast. Last night it flexed over three
centimetres and almost five centimetres near the window. So I went
just went out in the blizzard and got timbers. We have to put
wedges and chocks in to stop this flexing. I hate think what we'd
do if this hut...no I won't even think it. I saw up the timber and
it's helping. When the wind stops we'll go outside and bolt some
timbers on the outside. It's brutal out there now. I was only
outside for about five minutes and I felt okay but my nose and my
top lip weren't covered. Now that I'm back inside my nose and lip
are burning hot. It's the beginning of frost bite. Margie is making
us some nice warm Milo so I'll get back to you later.
Keep warm,
Don
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