This weekend sees the arrival of the little red taxi, a trip home for 19 expeditioners who have been here for between 4 & 18 months and food and fuel for the 14 of us who remain.

We have spent the last week pretending to be amateur weather forecasters poring over the daily charts the Bureau of Meteorology produce and put on the breakfast table. We all decided the best day for the ships arrival and then changed it with the arrival of the next forecast. The ship of course didn’t listen to us and set its own path, finally giving notice on Friday that it would arrive at 0800 on Saturday morning.

By 0630 most people were casually having breakfast, an unusual sight on a Saturday. The guys going home had a mixture of feelings, some happy and can’t wait anxiously hoping to get home on the ‘promised’ arrival date to meet wives, girlfriends and families who were coming to meet them. Some aren’t really fussed and would probably be happy to stay for another season and some are already anxiously applying for new jobs. Being away from home for upto 18 months is huge and all those problems of reintegrating into a network that has got used to you not being around will no doubt be the next challenge for the group homeward bound.

Meanwhile my little team are looking forward to the next 12 months alone. We are anxious to start reorganizing our rooms, getting a structure to our days and unpacking those boxes of personal effects that we packed back on October last year. The excitement of being here and getting started is still fresh. This week we bottled the first beer made by us, 250 litres of pale ale. The hydroponics container is all washed out and ready to be planted with lettuce, herbs, tomato’s and cucumber and we have been discretely redecorating our offices. There is a growing impatience though to be able to just redecorate the office, move furniture and make the station ours.

So we all wait in the mess…………

Lots of different emotions for every-one.

Finally at 0830 the call goes out, duck is on the pond, duck is on the pond. The Australian flag is raised up the flag pole and a little red ship appears from behind an iceberg, cameras start clicking and people run up the hill to set up the go-pro’s in the best spots.

It’s been a funny, reflective week, we are alone when this ship leaves. The planes that service the Antarctic have departed for their annual migration through South America, North America and Canada to Alaska were they will work for the Alaskan winter before migrating back next season. We are stuck, no matter what happens at home the best we will be able to manage is a phone call, if we get sick the Doc on station is our only resource, we have to manage our little piece of paradise, make sure that all the science and infrastructure projects are completed and not go slightly mad.  On a personal level I have missed the first family events, my husbands b’day, my nephews 1st birthday and my brothers b’day.

The science projects are pretty cool, there are not many jobs were you get paid to go and count Emperor chicks at the largest rookery in the world which just happens to have as a backdrop a massive ice cliffe….. or count Adelie penguins on a little island…. or test the air to check no nuclear bombs have been secretly released…. There all resume talking point’s. Less so the challenges of how to keep sewage and water lines running in -30 degree cold……… hint there is a lot of insulation and a heater wire. These are the highlights of the next 10 months, well the science projects are, if a sewerage line breaks I guess that will be a funny story……… after a few months.

When the ship leaves then we will find out how resilient we are as a group and individually. I’ll find out if I am quite as tough as I think I am. I’ll find out if I can build a community of people or if we will split into little cliques and groups and live separately groups brought together by work only. I like to think that the ground-work has been set and we have developed the mutual respect, group sense of humor and common goals and values that we need. There was a lot of sweat and tears put into making sure that these ‘things’ were instilled early in the community’s development. It will be time to see if they are paying off. With last years group leaving I find myself also thinking about the future and were I might be, why has the Universe given me this opportunity and what doors might it open in the future……