Ardery Blizzards

(25-Oct-1997)
A new team at Ardery

Editorial

The Ardery Blizzard headoffices are trembling in the howling Antarctic winds. These are normally the days that the full editorial board is at the office. But this time Susan is not with us, who is missing out on one of the more adventurous events of Ardery. A full blizz is sweeping over the island.
Susan is half of the replacement for Oliver Hentschel, who took his job as the Ardery Blizzard reporter too seriously. As he got blizzed almost every week last winter, and missing the deadlines for his articles, we had no other choice than to send him home.
The other half of the replacement of the one and only Oliver consists of Jeroen#2, who is assisting the team in a more technical way.

The Ardery Blizzard was started by Jeroen#1's supervisor Jan van Franeker during one of his four summers at Ardery. Originally only a letter of the Ardery Island team to the Casey crew, it has now an extended group of readers all over the world. It is the only electronic newspaper of Ardery Island, with all the local news and gossip of the Arderian community. The Ardery Blizzards are published irregularly: sudden and unexpected, even unwanted, but as an essential phenomena of the Antarctic environment. We will not try to keep you informed every week because our reporters have a busy job, they write but also make the stories themselves.

At last, but not at least, in this first editorial of the new season, I am happy to inform you that the Christmas Brunch for the Ardery Blizzard readers is held at 23rd July 1998 in the restaurant The Dutch Ovens at Ardery Island. A few places are still available. Partners welcome.

Blizz or shine, sleet or snow,
editor-in-chief.

Dear caseyites and other readers,

SUCCESSFUL LANDING
The landing of the new bird team on Ardery Island went rather smoothly due to the support of many people at the Aurora and at Casey. The afternoon at Casey was spent updating their medical knowledge about how to cope with all hazards we could encounter on the island. Janet, the doctor at Casey, showed them the contents of a big first-aid kit. Jeroen#1's assistants got some extra training in rope-work in the surroundings of Casey. After that the Arderians enjoyed another of Gerbil's feasts, checked out the bar and socialized with Casey's winter crew. Jeroen#1, seeing back the winterers after he left in April last year, had sometimes difficulties to recognize everybody with the ever changing haircuts. He himself lost his hair on one of last nights on Casey.

The next morning they headed to Ardery by choppers. The island was still there and the apples had survived the Antarctic winter. During a beautiful day Jeroen#1 showed John, Casey's Field Training Officer, the island and the colonies.

Meanwhile choppers brought technical gear, food, Mocker to install a new stove and to inspect the gasbottles, and Oliver to assist with the Ardery resupply. They also brought Ian2 together with the new datalink system to facilitate email for the Arderians. He had done a great job before our arrival, as he was able to get the system running within a few hours. An enormous food supply prepared by Gerbil was also flown in.

John's task was to teach the Arderians all the skills they needed in their fieldwork on the island within a few hours. For example, how to slide down the snowy slopes head first, which has now become a favorite method of transport on the island. Meanwhile Andy Cianchi, Casey's FTO of last year was inspecting the ropes at the Northern Plateau. After his usual cup of coffee he started to install a new anchor system to enable safe abseiling in the coming season.

As we are now settled in to our lovely summer camp at Ardery, we wish to thank all the people at Casey, at the Aurora, and also at the AntDiv for all their support in many (and sometimes hidden) ways and for their interest in our work. We are looking forward to seeing the Caseyites visiting our island, or on the few occasions when we are able to visit the station.

A NEW TEAM AT ARDERY
A Dutch saying is "a new spring, a new sound" which means something like: no single year is the same, and every year brings something new as it will on Ardery Island this year. A new team arrived to continue the long-term Dutch research project on petrels on Ardery. Jeroen Creuwels came back from a nice warm summer in Europe to collect more data on the ecology of Petrels in his second field season of his PhD-study.
His technical assistant comes also from The Netherlands and is also called Jeroen which might be confusing for the Casey crew, but will save them the trouble of learning another unpronouncable Dutch name. As no nickname has been invented he is still called Jeroen#2. Jeroen#2 has finished several technical schools and had finished his studies in electrical engineering by last August. After that he was trained by Willem, our technical assistant of last year, to cope with all the problems he could face with the energy-system and the artificial nest-system on Ardery. He is kindly asking if people are collecting "Home and Away" starcards which are enclosed in the Uncle Tobys' Weeties packages (the best before 1996-series). He is very eager to change his Katrina Hobbs (nr.18) for Kristy Wright.
To find an Australian volunteer was another story. There were enough people interested, but the final approval for this season arrived late in Holland. One volunteer after another pulled out for various reasons, with the last one pulling out just one week prior to leaving. To assure Jeroen of a new assistant a miracle was required which the Antarctic Division was able to provide by finding, approving, training, and medically and psychologically testing a new volunteer in just one week.
The victim is known as Susan Doust, who was on a big orange ship going southward before she actually realized where she was going and what she was doing. She will assist Jeroen#1 in the field and help him during the nestchecks and with handling the birds. She was kitted out with two bags of Antarctic clothes, and she is still trying to wear them all layered each day. Therefore all her survival gear fits in one camerabag.

RECIPES FROM ARDERY
We proudly present a new column in the Ardery Blizzard in response to the requests of many readers. The answer to the usual question "what do you eat at Ardery" will be gradually revealed in each issue, with some of the highlights of the Arderian Cuisine. Although the precooked meals by Gerbil's excellent catering services seemed difficult to equal in quality, we are happy to reveal the secrets of the outstanding Arderian culinary art.
The following recipe is by Jeroen#2 and can be served throughout the whole season.

'Well-done steaks, burned potatoes and frozen salad.'
Saw some slices (1 slice per person) of a frozen hump of beef. Defrost and do them well. Peel the frozen potatoes and put them in a pan with too less oil (preferably olive-oil) on a hot stove and leave them. Meanwhile prepare the salad. Take the frozen lettuce (or anything that resembles it, but frozen, will do. Jeroen tried endive) chop it up and serve it straight away with the burned potatoes and the well-done steaks.

SEA ICE
The unusual solid sea ice around Ardery Island made it possible for the Arderians to circum-skate the island. After a few trials, roped up and packed with full survival gear they started to explore the environment at sealevel. The Dutchmen noticed that North of Ardery was a perfect skating area, but unfortunately they left their skates at home.
On 15 October a traverse to Odbert was done to count the numbers of Antarctic Petrels. It appeared that the colony there has also seemed to decrease (in 1985 an estimated number of at least 25 breeding pairs) and now only 11 Antarctics were seen. Looking from the sea-ice, Jeroen's new assistants were even a bit more impressed by the steep cliffs than where they are normally working. Jeroen#1 used the sea-ice explorations to search for fresh Giant Petrel victims, and found - to his surprise - the corpse of A0120 on quite a distance from the colony.
Also Sally the seal, was back as her breathing was heard near her favorite spot at Robertson Landing, the Ardery Wharf.

SUSAN ON CASEY
The traverse between Ardery and Odbert proved that the sea ice was perfectly safe for walking, so a visit to Casey was planned for Susan for some luxury after being in the field for two weeks. A Hagglund was arranged to pick up Susan, and early in the morning the Arderians went walking to Robbo's Ridge over the sea-ice to the field hut about 5 km from Ardery. Simon, John and Chris were waiting to exchange Susan and some human waste for four 25kg batteries and two pairs of Sorells. Jeroen#1 seems to eat them.
Susan experienced her first blizz at Casey in the safety of the luxurious Redshed, but managed to spare a thought for the two unlucky Jeroens freezing in their well ventilated fridgy apple whilst she was taking a nice hot shower and eating many of the tasty desserts prepared by Gerbil.

HOW HEAVY IS 260 AMPS?
During the hectic fly-off operations Jeroen#1 noticed that the four batteries for his solar and wind energy system, which were left at Casey to be stored warm and dry over winter, had disappeared. Jeroen requested many times for them and Oliver was frantically searching for them at Casey, with no luck. Even after the Orange taxi had gone, nobody could tell where they were. The Arderians used spare batteries to keep their energy system running. Therefore it was agreed that 4 fully charged 65Amp batteries would be delivered to Ardery whenever the situation was favourable. It appeared to be the day when Susan was brought to Casey. At Robbo's Hut the 4 kindly borrowed batteries proved to be the four Dutch batteries!
The way to Odbert took only 1.5 hours, but the way back took 5 hours before two of four batteries were finally back at the apples on top of the island. For some reasons the sledge was sliding much better with the human waste on it, than with the four batteries. (For your safety: Jeroen#2 has warned that any jokes on these batteries can be dangerous.)

A SUNNY BLIZZARD
A special warning was given on the radiosked by Debbie for the Blizzard on Sunday 12 October. The Arderians inspected their rockgarden on the equipment, food and boxes outside. It was a real Sunday with brilliant blue skies and bright sunshine.

A LESS SUNNY BLIZZARD
The next sunday the mets were reluctant to predict a new blizzard on the next Sunday, but this time a full blizz came along. With windgusts up to hundred knots, the apples shivered and moaned in the storm.
On 20th October at 3 AM Jeroen#1 was seen outside playing with some stones. He felt like a toy of the Antarctic winds being thrown around so he had to crawl over the ground to collect new items for his impressive rockgarden around the apples. He slept very well that night with warm feet as his feet end of his sleeping bag was fully covered by 10cm of snow. The 100kg drum with the modem system for the email was blown over, as was one of the windgenerators. A few other items included Jeroen's hat which was blown away during one of the inspections around the apples.
It is was very wealthy period for Jeroen#2. The Ardery Apples are Australian public buildings and the same smoke policy is operative. He found out that a cigaret in a blizzard gave him only 5 puffs, before coming inside to warm up his hands. This strict policy is also valid for some other issues, so certain calls of nature were only responded to after a very well-thought-out strategy and the necessary preparations beforehand.

GIANT PETREL'S SNACK PARADISE
Immediately after arriving on Ardery Island the Antarctic petrels also returned from their winter holiday in higher latitudes. They looked relaxed and in very good shape. Unfortunately the Giant Petrels were feeling the same and were again very succesfull in limiting the study-objects of Jeroen's PhD-project. Very regularly GP's are visiting the colonies, and as the Antarctic petrels are the first to come back after the winter they seem to be disappearing the most rapidly.

That is about it for now, a new issue is already under way in which you will be informed by Susan's progress in Dutch, how you prepare smashed fishburgers with misfried potatoes, and the only way how you get orange juice out of an apple.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Stay cool but not too cool,
the bird boffins
Jeroen Creuwels, Jeroen Hasperhoven and Susan Doust
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Blizzard #9

Blizzard #11