Site: Cap Prud’homme
Meteo/weather: Soleil le matin, neige l’après midi / sunny in the morning, snow in the afternoon, -7°C

Aujourd’hui grand évènement: l’Astrolabe, le bateau brise glace
ravitailleur est arrive à Dumont d’Urville. Il a eu de la chance: la
banquise a presque complètement débaclé, et il a pu traverser rapidement
jusqu’à l’Ile des Petrels, sur laquelle est située la base de DDU.
Le seul hic, c’est que comme la banquise est partie, on ne peut plus
aller à pied sec entre CPH et DDU: les transferts de matériel se font
par helicopter. La météo est clémente aujourd’hui, et on assiste au
balet incessant de l’helico, qui déplace les conteneurs au bout de son
filin. Le pilote les depose très précisément, c’est impressionnant!
J’en profite aussi pour récupérer des pieces qui ont fait leur chemin
vers DDU au lieu d’atterir dans mes caisses. Et bonne nouvelle: les
caisses de Ghislain étaient sur le bateau, et il a pu toutes les
récupérer. La caisse mystère à Christchurch est toujours manquante, mais
celle d’Eric est localisée et en route pour MZS. Par contre, aucun avion
de prévu vers DDU avant le 23 janvier. Il faudra encore attendre.
Todo: fiche transport.

Today, the Antarctic season reached a milestone: the icebreaker supply
ship Astrolabe has arrived at Dumont D’Urville station (DDU). The
crossing was easy, because the sea ice is almost entirely gone already
this year. The only drawback is that, since the sea ice is gone, we
cannot travel on foot between DDU, on the Petrel Island and CPH on the
continent (where we are). We use helicopters to shuttle everything
between the ship, DDU and CPH. The weather is calm today, and we are
witnessing the constant dance of the helicopter carrying a load at the
end of a long rope. The pilot is able to drop it very precisely, it’s
quite impressive! (And a little scary to see a shipping container not
that far above our head!).

I took advantage of the shuttles to get small equipment that ended up in
a crate at DDU rather than in one of mine. Ghislain is happy, because
his missing equipment has been located on the ship, and was delivered
today, but Greg is not so lucky and the mystery case is bound for
Christchurch is still missing. Eric’s case has been located in
Christchurch, and will be on the next flight to MZS. Only there is no
flight bound for Cap Prud’homme for another week, so we won’t see it
anytime soon. As the dates become closer, we’ll have to make a decision
between waiting for this last piece of equipment but losing precious
sampling days in the field, or leaving without it.