The comedy just keeps on coming. Plus, now it seems that Turney failed to get some approvals, and his welcome home may not be all the happy. Maybe he’ll stay in Antarctica.

After having to prematurely abandon their mission due to being stuck in ice, and having a weather forecast provided that said all they had to do was wait a few more days, which came true, freeing the ship, the intrepid Dr. Turney and his gaggle of global warming geese tourists were evacuated by helicopter to the Aurora Australis, which then sailed to the Australian Casey Station to finish the resupply operations that got interrupted by Turney’s distress call.

The #spirtofmawson people are still at Casey Station, waiting for their ride home, while the Akademic Shokalskiy has made it to port in New Zealand. See the current positions of both ships:

Source: http://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:168.3123/centery:-46.88068/zoom:8/oldmmsi:273458210/olddate:lastknown (h/t to reader “itdoesntaddup”)

Here is the current position of the Aurora Australis:

Above: View of Casey base from the Aurora Australis webcam. Source: http://www.antarctica.gov.au/webcams/aurora

From the Aurora Australis sitreps reports:

Sunday 12-Jan-2014 We arrived at Casey this morning ready to commence cargo operations at 8am. We continued moving cargo between the ship and shore until 1330 when the refuelling hose was loaded on to the barge. The hose and anchoring system were deployed then the hose tested for any leaks. Once the leak test was complete pumping of SAB (Special Antarctic Blend) began. We are expecting that the completion of the refuelling of Casey will occur at around 6am tomorrow morning and we will have delivered over 850,000 litres of fuel during resupply part 1 and part 2. There is one remaining hold of cargo on the ship to discharge. When it is possible we try and transport cargo on the shore to ship as well as the ship to shore. This is not always possible depending at what stage of unloading we are at and what needs to occur to make room for the RTA cargo. It is a bit like a jigsaw but the pieces don’t always fit so neatly together. Cheers Leanne and Mark

Source: https://secure3.aad.gov.au/proms/public/schedules/display_sitrep.cfm?bvs_id=19327

What irony that the “trapped” ship has made it back, while the #spiritofmawson fools are still at Casey base, waiting for their ride home.

Meanwhile, all is not well back home. I suspect Turney won’t get a heroes welcome:

Head of Australian Antarctic science div., chides @ProfChrisTurney for saying #spiritofmawson had official approval. https://t.co/7bP8dDA8WD — Andy Revkin (@Revkin) January 9, 2014

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