ANZAC and Shorter Day(s)

 

As a bagpiper, perhaps the biggest day of the year is ANZAC Day. Depending on which Pipe Band we might play with, where we live and and your availability, you may find yourself playing at several services on the day starting before dawn and going through till midday. Before all this happens you need to have practiced the tune(s) you will play and know them well enough to be able to think about something else whilst you play ( according to my Pipe Major! ), have your uniform in good order, arrive in plenty of time to warm up the pipes ( and yourself ) and not leave something important behind.. like your bagpipes.. which I nearly did two years ago.

                Of course this year ANZAC Day has been a little bit different. With winter almost here, our days are rapidly shortening.  On ANZAC Day the sun rose at 8:56 AM meaning that I did not have to get out of bed at 4:15am in order to make it to a normal Dawn Service beginning around 6 AM at home. The only problem here of course is that it is a tad chilly with the temperature here at Mawson Station on ANZAC Day at dawn on -16.5C. In the scheme of things it wasn't super cold here but bagpipes don't really like cold, especially really really cold, and neither do my fingers! At these sorts of temperatures you don't have long before your fingers really start to hurt,get temperature dyslexia and begin to do funny things or alternatively not do much at all. This is obviously a problem if you are trying to get them to move in a co-ordinated and musical fashion when playing a tune.

                                    

Above: Temperatures just after the end of our ANZAC Day service

     The pipes themselves need to be played until the reeds warm up and either 1) stop not making any noises or 2) stop making horrible screeching noises that can in no way be described as musical. Having said that, my wife would probably say that even on a very good day the noises emanating from my pipes could hardly be called musical. Oh well, each to their own un-informed opinions I guess.

    So having warmed up my pipes as best I could at -16 C and then taking care to blow warm air into them for about 10 minutes before the service, it was moment of truth time. I had cheated with my fingers and got them toasty warm by putting a chemical hand warmer in each of my gloves an hour before it was time to play so they were ready to. I got the nod from the Station Leader, and as I was first to play as the flags were lowered to half mast, took a big breath and puffed. 

Above:  Playing the tune Lest We Forget at the opening of our service. My Sale RSL Pipe Band uniform only just managed to fit over the multiple layers of thermals/socks/wind proof things I was wearing to stay warm. It would have taken a very tough Piper to just wear the standard uniform that morning.... I am not even close to that tough thank you very much.

To my delight the pipes started with only a minor squeak and performed better than I had hoped for the approximately 90 secs of the tune. That sounds like a pretty short tune and it is, but my fingers were ready to surrender well and truly by then! The rest of the service went very well and it was quite moving as various members of the 77th ANARE took part, including our Met Bureau Technician who played the Last Post and Reveille on trumpet. Mawson Station had by far the best ANZAC Day Service of all the Australian Antarctic Division Stations I am sure.

                                     

Above:   The 77th ANARE team at Dawn on ANZAC Day. No prizes for picking me out.

    At the conclusion of the service I was to play Waltzing Matilda, but unfortunately, even with my constant huffing and blowing of hot air into my pipes, I was no match for 20 minutes of -16C and all I got when I tried to start was some pitiful squeaking. So I cut my losses and gracefully retreated with the rest of the team to somewhere much warmer thank you very much with hot food and a wee dram in my cup!

        Above:   Our Trumpeter and I after the Service in front of the Douglas Mawson Memorial. As you can see from the flags, it was a tad breezy.

    The other real highlight of the last few weeks has of course been the Solar Storms and the associated spectacular Auroras being seen all over the country. Naturally here in the wilds of Antarctica where there are not many man made lights we got to see a great light show several nights in a row as we had clear skies. That of course also meant it was very cold at around -25C each night. There are several avid camera buffs here at Mawson but the weapon of choice for photographing Aurora Australis is the humble GoPro. It is easy to set up for time lapse photography, comes with a multitude of clippy/grabby bits to bolt it onto whatever is lying around and can be powered all night by removing the battery and plugging in the 240V power pack. 

    In the really cold weather the battery will only last about an hour so its not much good for getting good Aurora photos as you have no real idea when they will make an appearance or for how long.

Below is a portion of the footage I took on 11 May starting at about 4 pm and going through until 9am ish.

The days are becoming quite short now as we begin to approach Mid Winters day which is a big deal here in Antarctica. Today the sun rises at 10:32am and sets at 2:56 pm. It starts getting light around 8:30 am and is dark by 4 pm. The sun will not rise at all for about two weeks around mid winters day and what light there is will be dark and greyish twilight for a few hours in the middle of the day. Of course the benefit of shorter days is that the sun hugs the horizon for longer and we get longer and more spectacular sunrises and sunsets... which I have to deliberately stop and soak up as they become "normal"... which is kind of a shame. Below are a few examples from around the Station.

 

    One of the more unusual tasks I have had in the last month was the cycling of the batteries in a small ROV (Remotely Operated Vehicle ) to make sure the batteries don't deteriorate due to a lack of use. Basically this involved charging the batteries to 100%, then dumping the little green submarine in a tub of water and turning on all the bells and whistles ( cameras/lights/propellers etc ) to get the batteries back down to 70% which is its long term storage level. After a couple of goes which involved the propellers spraying water all over the place, including all over me, I worked out that a heavy lump of wood on top held it under enough to get it under control for the hour it took to beat the battery into submission. We have been very tempted to cut a hole in the ice and take it for a drive but figure it might be hard to explain the disappearance of said ROV if a Leopard seal decided to come along and eat it or the cable fell off it and it vanished to the bottom of the 100 metre deep bay never to be seen again. I am still not sure what it is actually used for but you can rest assured your taxes are being used well by entertaining me with cool toys to play with here.

Above: Taking my little green ROV friend for a splash in the bath lest his green skin dry out.

To amuse ourselves last weekend we held a mini golf competition. A five hole course was constructed in the Green store ( Main Warehouse )  by members of the social committee and they certainly went all out to impress with the complexity and ingenuity of the holes. Below is an example of one of them.. all fully Health and Safety inspected of course.

The air temperature is now below -20C most days and exposing your bare skin to this temperature for more than a minute or two means significant pain in that exposed area. Left too long you will get frost nip ( a thin white patch on your skin ) and then if left further Frost Bite ( where the tissue actually freezes and can lead to bits of you dropping off ) can develop. Needless to say, you notice pretty quickly once you walk outside where you have failed to cover up. Below is the state of dress required by me every time I venture outside. It is a pain to put it all on and off again ( I also seem to be the slowest on station to don and doff my kit ) but at the end of the day I want all my appendages to be connected when I go home so I make sure I am covered thanks very much even if it takes a while.

Above Right: All your clobber lives in your cubby hole in the Cold Porch. This is the entry to the building to put it all on and off again and keeps the nasty cold out of the main buildings.

The sea ice has now got to a depth of between 70-85 cm around the station so we have just got the OK to walk and drive our vehicles on the sea ice around the station. Which is just as well as we are probably this week going to get some of the supplies that didn't make it off the ship when we arrived air dropped to us by a RAAF C17 Globemaster aircraft.

This will involve them flying from Perth, refuelling on the way in mid air, and then throwing 27 odd tonnes of salt and vinegar chips etc out the back of the plane as they go past. Hopefully the parachutes will deploy and my much desired salt and vinegar chips are not squashed to a pulp under a heavy engine part or some other less critical bit of gear. Whatever happens it should make for some great footage which I hope to include next time!

Below: Moon rising over the bay.