Chill Out

As a small boy, the protagonist dreams of the ultimate adventure of sailing to Antarctica as a researcher. This book is about how this dream came true many years later. It tells the story of the struggles leaving his young family in Australia and his subsequent survival in this extreme environment. It relates to the reader that scientists are no different from anyone else in that they have physical, emotional, and sometimes spiritual needs. It provides a unique insight into the minds and lives of the several inimitable characters that are entwined into the story.

In his role as geophysicist at Mawson Station, Big Dee strives to make a difference; he is not happy with just routine collection of seismological and magnetic data. In his quest, he seizes an opportunity to demonstrate that people’s lives are at risk every time they venture onto the sea-ice that surrounds the continent: some of the gigantic outlet glaciers into the Southern Ocean are not easily identifiable to passing traffic. Consequently, when he showed the link between the signals portrayed on the Mawson seismograph and catastrophic iceberg calving events from such outlets, he felt vindicated. He knew that this link could provide an early warning signal to those wanting to venture out across the sea-ice near to these potentially dangerous sites.

His relationship with some of his fellow Antarcticans provide plenty of amusing anecdotal material, but underneath this apparent success story is a gripping and tenuous relationship back home.