Sunday is the weekend but our work doesn’t stop!

Scott Base has lots of different types of people in a large range of occupations; there are the scientists but there are just as many (or more) other staff that include chefs, cleaning and domestic support staff, nurse, admin, comms, mechanics, electricians, engineers, managers and base leaders, among others. Impressively, most of these staff are multi-talented people who fill many different roles, as one could be a nurse as needed and be vacuuming the hallway at the same time; and one could be fire crew while also cleaning the bathroom. There are also a decent number of Defense Force/Army personnel doing all sorts of roles. For most, Sunday is considered the weekend, and otherwise we all work to a 6-day week. A lot of the scientists continue working through Sunday too to make the most of the opportunity to collect data etc.

Holly, Ocean and I walked to the top of Crater Hill to see how good the 360-view was, and it was even better than Observation Hill! It looks like it will be an ideal location for me to continue my observations and data collection throughout the month as it provides for a high vantage point where about 98% of the horizon can be seen, the other 2% blocked by Mount Erebus.

The other places we are making observations are along the pressure ridges, and at the Pou. Generally, we will be guided by the times of high and low tide as we want to see how the pressure ridges are influenced by the tidal movements. I am really loving the seals around the pressure ridges, most impressed by the way their faces are just about lost within the rest of their roundness. And the pups are super adorable.

On the way down, we met some of the pilots training to fly the Hercules and C17 planes down next season; they are only here for about a week and so far they have been out in the field doing lots of AFT and survival training exercises.