Date: 28 Dec 1992 18:08:19 +1000
From: "Paul R Smith - Electronic Engineering, LaTrobe Uni"
Subject: Arrived at Casey!
To:  chipper
Message-Id: <01GSUWUS3O368WX7JE@lure.latrobe.edu.au>
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Hi everyone and Happy New Year from Antarctica!!!

Made it at last! though we actually got here two days early thanks
to lots of calm weather for most of the way down.  This meant
everyone was keen to eat up big at Christmas and it was definitely
well worth it.  The lunch we had on the ship was better than the
one I get at home (er, no one tell my mum this ok?)  
Anyway we had a great party, and it's been good to talk to the
other expeditioners and find out what they're doing (there's
everything from a childrens story writer to glaciologists).  We
rocked into the harbour where Casey is on Boxing Day at about
midnight in broad daylight!  Weird experience, the sun sets but it
never really gets very dark.  The 
weather is still holding good so today I went on my first "jolly"
(antarctic word for any fun trip out into the countryside) to a
place called Shirley Island.  It took about 1/2 hour to walk there,
yes folks that's right, we walked to an island, of course it helped
that there was a big saheet of ice connecting it to the mainland.
We had no sooner stepped onto the ice when these Adelie penguins
started running towards us.  They seemed really happy to 
see us and were quite happy to toddle around a couple of meters
away.  A little further on there were a few seals slothing around
catching some sun, then we were on the island which has several
thousand pairs of penguins waitinbg for eggs to hatch or looking
after new born chicks.  They all live in little bunchs or colonies
all over the rock, so we had a careful wander around and expended
large quantities of film and video tape .  The surroundings are 
beautiful, with the water out to one side and low snow covered
hills on the other.  I can feel a skiing trip coming on soon :)
   Meanwhile the army and navy guys had been busy getting cargo off
the ship and the rest of us pitch in to get it stowed in various
places.  The harbour is free of sea ice, most of which blew out to
sea at and earlier date and which we met on our way here.  This
slowed the ship down for about a day to walking pace as we pushed
through it and I guess the thing that surprised me most were the
seals and penguins that were on these small ice floes out in the 
middle of nowhere.  Icebird (the ship) will hang around for another
couple of days before it heads back to Oz, taking the round
trippers with it.  This will ease up on the space around the
station a bit as things are pretty crowded right now, I think there
is around 80 at the moment.
   Well I better get back to helping with the unpacking so I'll be
back with more details later,
Paul