Landing Bluff, Friday, 7th December 2001
Today was a superb day. Blue skies all around, and in a flurry helicopter operations commenced after 9 am to move the AMISOR team's (Amery Ice Shelf) extensive gear from our pack ice position to Sansom Island some 60 nautical miles distant. The conditions were superb and by 7 pm I was told to be ready in 30 minutes to deploy to Druzhnaya IV (aka. Landing Bluff) a Russian station in hibernation which is our forward operational base for the Prince Charles Mountains and Beaver Lake. Luckily we had been anticipating this move and 20 minutes later were in stiffling immersion survival suits on a Squirrel chopper with Andy and Bernd flying over the dazzling sea icescape of Prydz Bay, the cliffed edge of the Amery Ice Shelf coming quickly into view. The evening light sharpened the relief of the horizon and the ice-shelf dramatically. No concept of scale or distance at all. Sansom island and Landing Bluff looked only a few hundred meters apart at first glance but were in fact many kilometers apart. Kevin our pilot handn't landed there before, but nonetheless we touched down in amongst the seemingly chaotic array of sheds, snow-drifts, fuel drums, armoured vehicles, antennas on a shattered surface of weathered granite. At last we made landing "at Landing Bluff" and we dug out the entrances to a couple of nearby huts to establish a comms base with the Polar Bird. In spite of their rather unglamorous, dishevelled appearance and pornographic decor, the Russian huts were very comfortable and functional. Meanwhile, Gerald and Margie arrived with other loads and by evening we were so exhausted by the dramatic change in evironment and unloading work that we hove to in the upper heli hut. Gerald, who had worked with the Russians before knew the modus operandum of the place and had the kerosene heaters going before too long, making the hut as warm as toast. Outside, despite the sun shining low after midnight it dropped to -12 degrees, with a biting wind coming off the ice sheet from the south. The view from the station was excellent, looking right up to Sansom Island, and across the frozen ice of Prydz Bay to the Amery Ice Shelf. The GPS installation could be seen shimmering up on the bluff, surrounded by hundreds of airborne snow petrels, some few hundred meters away, our target for the next day ! At last the work is nearing fruition !
Landing Bluff (Druzhnaya IV Station) S 69°44'48" E 73°42'35"
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