Landing Bluff, Christmas Eve, 24th December 2001

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Christmas Eve, so close but still yet so far. One year ago I was in Ushuaia, the southern-most town in the world in Tierra del Fuego, doing last minute shopping for a cruise around Cape Horn with Heather. Now, a year later at the southernmost extent of the Indian Ocean, marking time at a dilapidated Russian Base, burning kerosene. After making the longest voyage yet to get here, it seems an anathema to have spent the last 18 days going no further than 700m from the hut (all that is safely possible without stepping through some nasty crevasse fields and ice falls). A lot of ocean has been traversed since then ! The day was very still but generally overcast earlier on, I walked with Tom up to the GPS site and unsuccessfully attempted to fire up the Satcom B modem through the Gateway. I was very reluctant to try too much as there is a working system in place up there, and Sod's Law state's "If you stuff around with something long enough, you'll stuff it up". The weather cleared to become mostly sunny in the arvo and we improvised a cricket pitch on the helipad making some stumps, bails and a cricket bat out of the Russian debris. A ball was made out of a Russian glove bound with string. We had a good time and scored a few boundaries. The rules, anyone who hits the ball down into the tide crack is out! What would the Russians make of this ? We spotted three seals at the tide-crack in the distance, not auguring well for flight ops. It seems that whenever there are no seals lounging on the sea ice, we get flights and vice-versa. The forecast was for a series of interconnected lows sweeping along the East Antarctic Coast, much of the same; three days blizz, one, maybe two OKish days and back to whiteouts. All the field parties exchanged Christmas salutations over the HF at Sked time. Tom and I made up a snowman, complete with broken Russian glasses, sledging cap, carrot (for nose), pipe, slippers (Martin's left behind), a glass of beer and a bottle of Russian Vodka (Stolichnaya) + other unspeakable adaptions to the anatomy. We hooked into Christams mode, decorating the mess hut with red rags tied with tinsel. We found an old Russian Christmas tree and Anya made up a super-dooper hot curry which we washed down with a few beers, followed by healthy doses of Gelnmorangie and James Beam. We turned in sometime after 5 am. Chrstmas Day well at hand.

Landing Bluff (LDBF) Technical Inspection

Landing Bluff (Druzhnaya IV Station) S 69°44'48" E 73°42'35"

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