Monday 23 September 1974
I spent most of the day writing up my report on our depth and current measurement of the proposed DVDP site No 3. Late in the afternoon Bill Johnson visited McMurdo to sign for fuel and whilst there met Sergei Abakumov. He arrived back in a highly jovial mood, claiming to have done a great deal towards accelerating the East-West détente.
Conditions at 0900 hours Wind East 9 knots Temperature -28.8°C
Tuesday 24 September 1974
Today six of us re-erected Scott’s Cross. Tony and Chris with the power pick had excavated with great labour a hole 20 inches deep. Our group climbed the hill with ropes timbers and jerry cans full of water and with some difficulty pulled the cross upright in the hole. We then packed the base with fine rubble onto which we poured water. We then roped the Cross shaft firmly against a huge boulder with wire rope and a turnbuckle. Finally, we covered all this with a cairn of rocks embedded in snow and water. It may need more rocks in summer.
We heard later that an American humourist who had watched us labouring up and down the hill with our loads and then finally saw the cross sway upright, rushed inside and called out
“Hey fellas. Come and look. The Kiwi’s are having a crucifixion!”
Bob Grant repaired the Dodge wannigan transfer case. We can now again get low ratio.
Conditions at 0900 hours Wind West 2 knots Temperature -30.5°C
Wednesday 25 September 1974
At midday we experienced a 51 knot southerly. No damage. Chris Wilkins spent most of the day at Arrival Heights putting in little extra bits of wiring for Ian Thomas.
Conditions at 0900 hours Wind North-East 9 knots Temperature -23.2°C
Thursday 26 September 1974
A recreation party got away to the Royds/Evans area today. The USARP divers are going up there next week and we undertook to find out the conditions of the huts, wannigans and ice. Tony Atkinson, Chris Wilkins and Titch Gibson comprising the group. They had no trouble on the trip up. Ice at Cape Barne was 51 inches thick and 20 inches thick at Backdoor Bay. Wannigans and huts were in good condition. No open water in sight.
Bill Johnson made up another carton of items for return to New Zealand. My split finger seems to be healing in an odd way with a growth of flesh protruding through the split nail so I reported to the McMurdo doctor. After commenting on my dirty engineer’s finger he gave me a local anaesthetic and scrubbed the area with a nail brush. Then after pulling the flesh about with forceps he decided that no treatment was required except a cleaner bandage. The whole treatment probably set the healing process back by about a week. I spent the rest of the day writing a report on the heat machine failure.
Conditions at 0900 hours Wind East-North-East 14 knots Temperature -23.6°C
Friday 27 September 1974
The Evans/Royds party returned by way of Razorback Island and the Erebus Tongue ice caves. They had a bucketful of intriguing polygon shaped ice crystals. Bob Grant carried out a major (500 hour) service on the front end loader. I tidied up the dispensary ready for my successor and did some repair jobs on the lino in the Mess. We have started clearing out the “no freeze” stores from the spare bunk rooms. In the evening a number of USARP’s came over for drinks.
Conditions at 0900 hours Wind North-North-East 15 knots Temperature -24.2°C
Saturday 28 September 1974
I spent most of the day balancing the book sales and stamp funds – having carelessly lost the previous balance sheets. We have started cleaning up all our outstanding odd jobs both inside and outside.
Conditions at 0900 hours Wind West 8 knots Temperature -26.6°C
Sunday 29 September 1974
The McMurdo Chaplain, Jim Trett, rang to say that there was a lot of snow in Scott’s Discovery Hut. He wanted to take a group in and clean it up but I persuaded him that this was our job. If an inexperienced group start knocking snow off everything in there they will do more harm than good. I walked over in the afternoon and it seemed to me that if we shovelled the snow off the floor this would suffice as the rest would rapidly ablate away as the warmer weather came.
Our second party for Royds/Evans got away at 0900 hours with replacement items for the refuge huts and materials with which to effect repairs.
Conditions at 0900 hours Wind South 1 knots Temperature -13.8°C
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