West Arm is a long rock mass protruding out into the sea, and creates a U-shaped harbour near station called Horseshoe Harbour. West Arm is considered to be ‘extended station limits’ which means you can wander around there freely but has extra procedures associated with going there, namely you need to turn your muster tag (to identify you are not on station) and take a radio. It’s a great place to visit, especially at sunset as the sun dips behind Bechervaise Island further west. There are some historical grave memorials there, and it has the famous ‘ It’s Home, It’s Mawson’ sign (akin to the Las Vegas sign but less glitzy!!). There are plans to build a huge bollard there to moor the new ship to, but so far there’s just a spot marked out where it’s intended to go.
I went out to West Arm with Ryan (electrician) and Aaron (carpenter and building supervisor), when we were still in resupply since we had such good weather, then headed out again only a couple of weeks ago with Kate (doctor) and Danielle (met observer) also on a lovely day - well you wouldn’t want to go out there in poor weather anyway! It was very exciting to go out there the first time, venturing away from station having only been on station for five days, and the colours in the sky were stunning from pastel purples, to golden and rust - I was starting to see how amazing the light is here.
The second time we headed out to the very end, to the iconic sign. The current sign replaced the original sign which was getting rather weather-beaten, and now takes pride of place in the lounge area of the Red Shed (living quarters). The graves/memorials are for some workers who died at Mawson, and one is for Philip Law, founder and director of the ANARE who’s ashes are scattered here, as well as his wife’s. It was great for Kate, Danielle and I to be there looking at Phil Law’s memorial as Kate told us that he was quoted to say that “women would only work in Antarctica over my dead body”. So there we all were, and he was quite right really!
