After the resupply at Davis Station, it took a couple more days to get to Mawson Station. This was a really spectacular part of the journey as we headed into the pack ice, the ship pushing and nudging big chunks of ice floe aside. We saw Adele penguins and different types of seals, usually leopard, crabeater or Weddell seals, all resting on ice floes.
The ship made its way through the broken sea ice - as it was not an icebreaker, and the captain was not used to much sea ice, the ship did not venture too far into the ice pack even though there was open water in front of Mawson Station for quite some way. They were also worried about the sea ice freezing and not getting back out if they went all the way in to Mawson, since we were a little later in the season than normal.
The light was always amazing in the afternoons and evenings, with soft pastel colours usually because of light cloud. The shapes and colours in the ice were also spectacular. The ship stopped about 80 or so nautical miles away from Mawson - we were basically having to do the ‘worse case scenario’ resupply which involved using only two small helicopters to ferry only essential supplies, as opposed to using barges to take entire containers across like for the Davis resupply over water. This also meant we could not get any fuel pumped across, so lean times ahead in terms of fuel and energy use on station.
While the ship was starting the process of resupply, the ship’s movement created some open water at the front and back of the ship, and pods of whales took advantage of this open water to surface and breathe. We also saw our first aurorae during this time, with one evening being quite impressive, just marred a bit by the bright lights of the ship.
