I am halfway through my sojourn at sea and loving the perpetual motion of the ship. We are moving through an endless ocean in apparently endless circles. Not having a 'destination' is quite a nice thing. There is nothing on the horizon for 360 degrees. There's no ice to be seen, not even a growler. We are nearly 200nm north of Cape Denison on the Antarctic continent, adrift on a lonely sea.
In fact we do have a purpose. This is the CASO (Climate of the Antarctic and Southern Ocean) sampling area. We must cover 31 stations in six days making CTD drops of around 3,600 metres to sample the cold, dense, Antarctic bottom water that drains from the Mertz Glacier. We are working over the skid marks on Rob's Gondwana map that show the seabed canyons as deep tracks gouged out during the ancient rift between Australia and the continent.
It takes over an hour for the wire to descend that far at a rate of around a metre a second.
But Time is relative now, with everyone on different 12 hour shifts. The 12 to 12 idea has relaxed somewhat and some are preferring 1-1 or 2-2, removing any meaningful reference points. Evening meals are at 1730 but people eat cereal at any meal-time and it's day time all day anyway. (I must check to see when the sun will actually set again.)
I visited the helideck today to follow up a rumoured spa facility and found Sarah and Tank occupying it. The commodious plastic aquarium can accommodate two luxuriously, three with ease, or four friends. (I did hear the number eight mentioned, but that beggars belief.) Aaron created the spa using a shower head which keeps hot water circulating, an arrangement of hoses to control the flow of waters in and out and an air hose to inject a little spa fizz.
Fortunately I packed my bathing costume so I returned to join the others for a lovely afternoon sitting in the steamy bath looking over the helideck and across the sea, whale spotting. A gentle snowstorm brushed across us leaving ephemeral snowflakes sparkling in our hair.
And another nice thing today: two bars of chocolate were left inside cabin doors this morning. They may be survival rations. I'll save one for later.
Margot Foster is a journalist currently on board the Australian Aurora Australis, an Australian research vessel currently participating in the Census of Antarctic Marine Life (CAML, IPY project 53). She works with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).