This week at Davis: 27 November 2015

Davis station is very lucky to often receive foreign visitors and delegates due to its location near other nations’ Antarctic stations and also because Davis has a very active aviation and shipping schedule.

This week Davis hosted two representatives from the Indonesian Meteorological Climatological and Geophysical Agency. Our foreign guests were on an exchange program hosted by the Bureau of Meteorology, their Australian counterpart. Our Indonesian guests were keen to monitor and learn how the Bureau of Meteorology does work in the Antarctic.

At the end of their stay there was a formal presentation where a plaque personally signed by the Indonesian President Joko Widodo was presented to the Davis station leader. The plaque read ” The presence of scientist in the field of Meteorology and Climatology from Indonesia, with their colleagues from Australia, on Antarctic Continent brings closure a relationship between neighouring countries Australia and Indonesia”.

On mainland Australia we take many things for granted, most of all is getting a haircut. Normally, we just jump in the car and go and get a haircut. Not so easy at Davis! However, to the surprise of everyone on station this year, a helper appeared in the shape of our French chef, Sebastian.

It takes many individual efforts to mould a community on an Antarctic station and this is a great example. It is only appropriate that the term ‘Espirit de corps’ is French as it means “a feeling of pride and mutual loyalty shared by the members of the group”.

On station expeditioners soon bond into a team — a team with fantastic haircuts.

A traditional, recreational and team building activity at Davis is the station brewery. Here a limited amount of home brew beer and ale is created by the station ‘brew master’ with the resulting home brew put out for consumption on special occasions. Over the years many different recipes of home brew have been invented and some legendary tales created as to which beer was the best. These recipes have over the years been recorded in the station home brew register for the future use of newly arrived expeditioners.

The brewery has mostly been a male dominated area and it’s like the perception only a bloke can cook on a BBQ. What a pleasant surprise then when visiting the brewery this week to find the female expeditioners had taken over production and the guys were relegated to washing up.