Hello winter

We’re now almost a month into the winter season. The summer flew past super quickly and on Feb 18th the Aurora Australis departed with the summer expeditioners, as well as a few of the 71st ANARE winterers who stayed on for the summer season. With no sea ice to drive on, barges were used to transfer the return cargo and ferry expeditioners out to the ship.

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With goodbyes complete the passengers were loaded on, last to board were the two helicopters. As is tradition, the 19 remaining winterers waved off the ship with some (expired) flairs and the ship sailed off just after 7 PM.

With only 19 of us on station, things are considerably quieter now. It’s actually possible to walk through the LQ and find nobody in the mess/bar/cinema/lounge at all.

Not long after we had the first formal dinner of winter. Nick prepared an awesome meal. For entree: Duck breast salad with bacon, pecans and sherry vinegar, Mains: Lamb racks, almond croquettes, spinach, roast onions with balsamic jus, and for desert: Lemon tart with raspberry coulis, chocolate and ice cream. Really enjoyable, thanks Nick!

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One of the great things about Nicks cooking is that the leftovers can often be found in the ‘catch and kill’ fridge for further enjoyment! Now that we only have one Chef, Sundays are a ‘catch and kill’ day while Nick has the day off, and on Mondays the kitchen slushy cooks so Nick can get the weeks admin and prep in order.

I’m going to try my best and get some more summer photos up soon. I’ve still been pretty busy at work, no longer having Jamie (IT Officer) to share the workload with I’ve been putting in extra effort to get ahead of things while the weather is favourable. Thanks for reading.