Greetings Sitrep Subscribers,
Well, if it’s Saturday then it must be bath day! Ha ha, I’ll spare you the grimier details, but suffice to say we’re all now into various routines, personal and professional, and our little house on the prairie (friends, www-watchers, I’ll take a pic and send it over later) is in great shape.
The weather today has also been astonishingly kind, compared to the mid-week blizz and white-out. At midday, the wind was blowing at a breezy 20 knots; it was just minus 7C; minus 17C with wind chill; 55% relative humidity, and the sun was fighting through an overcast sky with patches of blue, a battle it was gradually winning!
It has also afforded us the opportunity to get outside and get stuff done. Once we’d all materialised for breakfast, Psycho (aka Chris) ran us through the second of now-regular medical and safety briefings, specifically the basic DR. ABC (Danger, Response, Airways, Breathing, Circulation) should we run into grief anywhere.
Outdoors, the lads have moved a cage pallet and large generator from the Sorensen to Mawson’s Hut and unloaded other cage pallets at Mawson’s Hut; we’ve moved tools and other equipment from the Granholm to Mawson’s and also begun ‘tooling up’ for the commencement of work at the hut; Chris, Ted and Marty have been trying to sort out one of the quad bikes which is playing up, while Chris ran Ian and Simon through a lesson on operating the quads and riding them safely over the rough sastrugi (the rough, uneven potholed snow surface that’s been sculpted by the wind); and work has also been carried out on the blizz boxes so the power generators can be safely stowed to minimise the ‘in-creep’ of fine drift snow.
Little house on the prairie - our digs for the duration.
Ted also advises that if the good weather continues tomorrow then work can begin on excavating the huge build-up of ice on and around the roof of Doug’s Shack. We can only hope and pray that the sun continues to shine from here on in.
Watch this space.
Simon
