Photo album: "End of sojourn"
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We
are drawing near the end of my sojourn at the base of Dumont d'Urville. Since we
were very busy during the estate campaign, these two last months have gone very
quickly. Amongst the different works of that campaign, we made measurements to
control the characteristics of the riometer's rotating antenna. This allowed me
to fly three hours in the helicopter, with an improvised transmitter. To let the
antenna cable pass we had to remove a little panel in the floor just under my
feet. Those three hours were very cold! When the transmitter was "on",
it perturbed the radio of the helicopter, I had therefore to switch it off, in
order to permit the people on the ground to guide the helicopter on the right
trajectory (using a theodolite), an other person gave me the order to switch on
the transmitter when the helicopter crossed the field of an other theodolite.
After a long time a flight I received a request I'll never forget. The
responsible of the operation asked me: "Guy, could you switch on the
transmitter a few seconds before being asked to?". I understood then, that
my boss was beginning to be a little tired.
To simplify the comments of the photos, hereafter, the seventeenth expedition
(mine) is called TA17 (i.e. Terre Adélie 17), the eighteenth one is called
TA18. The "Groupe de Recherche Ionosphérique", French laboratory
responsible of the Iono's instrumentation and teams, is called with its acronym
GRI.
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Jean Heuzey (Meteo, TA17) is doing one of his last readings of meteorological ground parameters. On the contrary to most of us, he let his hair grow. They are now so long he needs no hat to go out into the cold. |
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Jean-Claude Lancelot (Sismo, TA17), on the left, and Jacques Lavergnat (Iono, TA17), on the right, are playing chess by the light of a few candles. During winter, we played chess even against other polar bases. A game could last a very long time because we made, at the best, a move a day. Soviets were very good at this game, but once we succeeded in making a soviet base to believe we had won. We just made one of their bases play against another base, forwarding the moves they transmitted to us. |
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I am leaning against a barrel of Australian wine. The Australian wine was the everyday wine. For feast days we opened French bottles of wine that, sometimes, was less good than the Australian one because it had suffered too much during the long weeks of navigation in the hot tropical seas. |
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The return of the Iono team, after a day of work. By order of arrival: Robert Varese (Iono, TA18); Bernard Counit (Iono, TA17); then, on the left in a red shirt: Lucien Leroy (Iono, TA18); on the right in a red shirt: Bernard Morlet, Iono's responsible for the summer campaign (GRI); behind in the middle: Michel Deslignes, mechanic (GRI). |
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There is some greenery, too, in the building "Common life" (nowadays, this building is preferably called "Séjour" [residence]). Behind, there is the bar and on the right the restaurant room. The restaurant room is also used as cinema theatre. We had a very few films we knew by heart at the end of the winter over. |
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The "salon" (sitting room and library) is on the left of the bar. There is, behind the shelves, on the left, a small room with LP records and a phonograph. |
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Hubert Touzel (responsible of the power station, TA17), spends a few hours of rest fishing, comfortably installed on the rock face, a can of beer within reach. |
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A "cave" between the northern extremity of Pétrels island and a tiny rock islet, bound together with a several-metre thick layer of ice. Accessible only during winter when the sea is frozen. |
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"Lion island". Since many years, a view that can no longer be seen. This island has been levelled to a few meters above sea surface. The recovered stones have been used, along with those of other islets, to fill the space between those islets permitting, thus, to make a 1100-metre long runway for aircraft. However, that runway has never been completed (the final coating is lacking) and tempests have damaged it. The reason: after having given the agreement and the funding, the French State, following the advice of some ecologist movements, dumped the project. Now, the island is used as a wharf for the ship. If they had thought deeper in the beginning, in my own opinion, they could have saved years of work and a lot of money, wasted in vain, and preserved this landscape. |
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It is the end of summer. We have again a few hours of night. The Adélie chicks are completing their moult. Gazing at the moonlight, I feel a little sad at the idea of leaving this island where I have lived for one year and that, maybe, I will never see again. I didn't know, then, I would be engaged by GRI when I am back to France and I would go back to Dumont d'Urville eleven times, however only during summer for periods of one to three months, never again in winter. |
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We embarked on Thala Dan, on February 27th. The ship departed the next day and, with a few tears in the eyes, we have watched to disappear slowly Pétrels island and its so harsh but so attaching environment. At the beginning of the journey, as the sea was very rough, I scarcely left my bunk in the cabin of Thala Dan. After a few days I got accustomed. |
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We arrived in Hobart, Tasmania, in the morning, on March 5th, 1968.We retrieved our passports, we sent to the Consular Agent for France, in Hobart, by the first rotation of Thala Dan. They have now all the visas necessary to the return journey we planned to do, André Santu (Magne, TA17) and me. We went, then, to buy the last items we needed for our journey (medicine against malaria, sleeping bag, backpack, etc.). Around noon, a short drive up to Mount Wellington (1270 m) allowed us a beautiful view of Hobart and its surrounds. In the evening we went to a reception given by the French Alliance of Hobart. After a last night aboard the ship and the customs formalities, the next morning, we are now saying good-bye to our travel companions. We will use our last day, before flying away, to visit the ancient penitentiary of Port-Arthur and see, in Richmond, the oldest bridge of Australia, build by convicts in 1823. We must remember that Australia was used, in the beginning, to displace convicts away from England. The oldest Australian families are the descendants of those convicts and they are very proud of it. |
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