Now, here comes the sun
Print Edition
ANTARCTIC researchers welcomed the winter solstice (the Northern Hemisphere’s summer solstice) with an exhilarating plunge into icy waters yesterday as they look forward to brighter days after weeks of darkness.
Expeditioners stationed at Australia’s Davis station marked midwinter’s day by taking a chainsaw to the ice, cutting a small pool and taking a dip in water with a temperature of minus 1.8 degrees Celsius.
Davis station leader Kirsten le Mar said it was the halfway point for those wintering on the continent and a highlight of the Antarctic calendar.
“After three weeks of darkness, today marks the beginning of longer days in Antarctica, although it will still be 19 days before the sun starts to peek above the horizon here at Davis,” she said.
Electrician Bryce Daniels described his quick swim as “amazing.”
“There is the briefest of briefest moments where you slightly feel warm and then you work out that you are actually freezing instead,” he said.
Many of the 68 researchers working for Australia’s Antarctic program joined in with the chilly festivities, which included a sea-ice golf competition and a theatrical performance.
Several countries have territorial claims on Antarctica — viewed as a potential source of huge mineral resources — although under a 1949 agreement the frozen continent is designated a scientific preserve.
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