Chapter 22      

When you're spending all your time managing, don't forget to lead

We had been on the ice for nigh on eight weeks and summer was quickly drawing to a close. We hadn't yet had a sunset, but already the air was chill with expectation of winter. We pushed on at a rapid pace for the rest of summer.

Driving under the influence

It was very important to stay on top of the technical management of the station but also to keep an eye out for simmering tensions. We had been lucky so far. Despite the availability of alcohol we hadn't had any alcoholrelated incidents, until one of the summerers rolled a quad bike at 3 am.

The end of science

We pushed on with our work with a greater sense of urgency than ever before. Days were long and the work was complex. The science programs were all nearing completion and we had just three groups yet to return to the field and collect their final samples and data.

Then the weather closed in with a bang. Unannounced. Unforecast. One minute it was sunny and 3 °C, the next minute a howling wind was ripping through, threatening to tear the skin from our flesh as we fought our way to shelter. The sky turned black with heavy cloud and small particles of ice swept across the station almost horizontally.

I was caught outside between two buildings when the wind hit. Wearing jeans, a tee shirt and polar fleece jacket I was chilled to the bone in the 15 seconds it took me to get to shelter. One by one we turned our home/away fire tags as we re-entered the station, bedraggled and numb with cold. To keep people safe it was a policy that any person travelling off station, for any distance at all, was required to carry a survival pack. The pack contained food, water, a radio, clothing, sleeping bag, compass, sleeping mat and bivvy bag. From the outset I was absolutely firm that we follow this policy and openly chastised anyone who did not. The result was full compliance. The result was that we were all safe.

Three expeditioners were out hiking when the weather struck. Within minutes they were on the radio and pinpointed their position. I sent out a small team in a Hagglunds and they brought them in quickly and safely. But this weather event was a harbinger of things to come. As Melbourne announced autumn with a cold snap, Antarctica sent a warning shot across our bows. In 15 minutes the temperature had plummeted to −15 °C with a wind chill factor of −20 °C. Being caught out in that was equivalent to standing outside in −35 °C weather.

People often ask me how cold it got in Antarctica. To most of us who live in temperate climates +5 °C is cold, −5 °C is really cold, and so is −35 °C. There's no real distinction for most people once you start getting into the minus numbers. But I explain it this way. Imagine you're on a tropical island holiday and it's +35 °C. Then you step off the plane at home and it's 5 °C. It's hot to cold straight away. It's the same thing for −5 °C and −35 °C. One is very cold and the other is a cold so extreme that you will die within minutes of exposure. It's hard to describe just how cold −35 °C is, but no matter what you are wearing you will still feel cold. One day I ducked outside after dinner to grab something from my office 50 metres away. I forgot I‘d just had a shower and my hair was still wet. By the time I reached the office my hair was frozen! In just seconds I had created a very flattering, and totally unique, frozen dreadlock icicle hairstyle. Frozen solid. Gorgeous. No wonder I was single!

With the weather now highly variable and extreme I knew it was time to make a call about the science programs. The icebreaker would steam into the bay within three days. If everything went well we might just be able to finish our sample collections, but two things bothered me. Firstly, what if the planes did indeed have a design fault and we ended up with expeditioners stuck out on the ice during resupply? And secondly, what if the weather turned very bad, as it had just done, but stayed bad. At $80000 of Australian taxpayers’ money per day, keeping the icebreaker in port for four days longer than required would be an expensive, and public, mistake.

The end of summer

I woke up at 5.30 am and looked out my window. There was the Aurora Australis in all its bright-red splendour anchored in the bay. Resupply this time was not over the ice — the ice was gone. Instead the helicopters shuttled over much smaller parcels all day. Fresh fruit, the mail and some much-needed spare parts for our water makers. It was an exhilarating time to be on station — the air was full of the excitement and triumph of the returning summerers, and the anticipation of the winterers.

The problem with Texas

The resupply wasn't without its unexpected challenges. The ship had brought down three new scientists to oversee the program transition and ensure an orderly handover. One of these people was a man everyone called ‘Texas’, and he drove me insane!

Texas seemed to carry a big chip on his shoulder. It felt like Antarctica, the expedition, the expeditioners all owed him some kind of favour and he didn't waste time letting us know. The first I heard about it was when Rob came to me to say that he was concerned we weren't going to meet our timeline for the resupply. ‘Why not?’ I asked. ‘What's changed?’

‘Well,’ he replied, ‘Texas apparently has to get out in the Zodiac boat to see the penguins. Apparently they had a hard time at Mawson.’

‘Who had a hard time? The penguins? The expeditioners?’

Our boats were not yet even unpacked, and it would take two people half a day to get them ready. The outboards were full of antifreeze and had to be flushed and the hulls had to be moved into a warmer building before they were inflated. It was a lot of extra work for two people who were already working to an extremely tight deadline.

I got hold of Texas. ‘No way — we're not doing it. The boats are still packed and the ship leaves in 24 hours. I'm not putting the boats in.’

I felt that Texas reacted as many self-entitled people do — full of self-aggrandisement, and what I thought were veiled warnings of negative reports on our activities and political interference for the rest of the year. I stood firm. This was my expedition, my rules. We had a deadline and we were going to keep to it, and no amount of pressure from him would change this. I let my winterers know that should Texas approach any of them with requests they were to refer them straight back to me.

But he didn't let it go. Right up to the moment the ship left I think he attempted to destabilise the winterers by cajoling and spreading gossip. But by now we were a strong group, made stronger by the presence of a common enemy. And my people held the line.

Goodbye summerers

The transition from the driving, urgent pace of summer activity to the slow pace of winter takes just 24 hours. That's how long it took to load my summerers into the helicopters for the quick flight out to the ship, get everyone settled and wave them goodbye. The helicopters were dismantled and lashed to the deck. The summerers bubbled and chatted, handing around CDs full of photos and looking forward to the short trip back to Hobart to meet family and friends.

With a long blast of the ship's horn and a few flares lighting up the sky, the Aurora Australis weighed anchor and quietly slipped from the bay, taking with it 80 scientists, our air transport and all the left-over Southern Comfort. The scientists were mainly very happy. With the exception of the VHB plane crash, the summer had gone off without a major hitch. As I watched the icebreaker depart I felt proud that the first big milestone of my year in Antarctica had been reached.

Part of my heart went with them. As I looked around at my 17 winterers I saw in them a mixture of happiness and trepidation. For the next nine months there would be no more opportunities to get off Antarctica. I would not see another face and I would get to know each of my 17 very well. In fact, I had a hunch that by the end of our time in Antarctica I would know what everyone was thinking before they did, as they would me.

For nine months there would be nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. We would eat, sleep, work and relax together. It would be just like Big Brother, but no one would be evicted. And if we all wanted to hate one person we would have to deal with it. If any internal us-and-them developed I would have to bring us back together. If someone required performance management I had no carrot to entice them, and no stick to punish with.

Nothing can really prepare you for this kind of experience. No amount of leadership training could ever teach you all the things you need to know. I would be alone as the leader, isolated and under intense scrutiny, with no peers and no support network other than a patchy phone line back to Hobart.

And it really scared me.

Prime Aussie beef and potato gems for the Russians

With a long-remembered Pavlovian instinct the Russians arrived the day the summerers left. I could never get my head around exactly what they were doing in Antarctica. Not a lot of science appeared to be going on. The Russians didn't have an influx during summer and their expeditioners were sent down for a two-year stint. With no resupply!

Many people think countries like Romania, Russia and India are there simply to lay a territorial claim. Antarctica is the only landmass with no sovereign rights, and everything hinges on the Antarctica Treaty. If we lay a claim to an area or sector, perhaps when the technology arrives and we have run out of resources elsewhere, we'll start to dig up Antarctica as we've dug up every other country in the world. I preferred not to contemplate the why, but I was fascinated with the what.

I had visited the Russians over summer. Sadly, it was everything I expected a Russian station to be: dirty, smelly, cramped and ugly. It had the feel of a particularly seedy trailer-park in a rundown midwestern American town. A discarded pool table lay on its side rotting in the mud. Discarded oil drums bobbed in the water. Inside it was greasy walls and very poor food. And they had brought a cat! But in this squalor were men of incredible warmth and competence. In the middle of all this they had entertained us wonderfully and in no time made us feel like part of their family.

By incredible contrast, the Russians had a new Mil-8 helicopter. It was probably the best helicopter then in Antarctica. The Mil-8 can carry 4 tonnes of cargo at a time — it's a massive beast. And the day after the summerers departed the Mil-8 arrived. With an empty hold.

It didn't take long to twig to what was going on. They were after supplies left behind by the summerers. Supplies we wouldn't need, or possibly weren't allowed to serve given the food date issue. Hey, if we gave it to the Russians at least we wouldn't have to burn it or send it home. We all went exploring for goodies to hand over. In the freezer we found all manner of frozen meat that had been earmarked for summer and not used.

The Russians left Davis extremely happy. They had scored a tonne of prime Australian beef, half a tonne of lamb, numerous barrels of cooking oil and a host of odds and ends we would not require. But what they loved the most? When they saw an entire pallet of frozen potato gems, their eyes glazed over and I swear I could hear them salivating. By hook or by crook those Russians were going to squeeze them into their Mil-8, even if they had to leave some crew behind, which I'm sure they contemplated when it became apparent that not all their booty would fit!