Well, the last day's flying was fine for me, but the other pilot wished that he'd stayed on board. There was one French geologist to be taken back to Dumont D'Urville at the end of the day, plus our engineer and '4th hand' went along for the ride and a last meal ashore. As I broke the fuel control on the first day, so did they break their fuel control when they came to leave; only far more seriously than mine, and the engineer left his toolbox on board. I only had to spend the night worrying about the ramifications of how to sort out getting my helicopter and all the gear stowed for the return trip, they had to spend the night outside in < -30C repairing the machine or stay another month until they could be flown out by fixed wing.
They did a sterling job and got back on board at 7am, having checked out Mawson's Hut on the way. It's still covered to the roof with snow and ice, so there's a lot to clear
We then started for home, and searching for icebergs and weather! We needed a bit of shelter from the wind, so that we could remove the rotor blades, eventually 'parking' in the lee of a medium sized 'berg
The helicopters were kept on deck through the pack ice in case a recce flight was needed, but the pack ice was thinning rapidly. The main attraction became a huge iceberg from the Ross Shelf, some 15km x 13km in size
We then had to find a chunk of ice big enough to park into, in order to go through the process of putting the helicopters back into "Le Garage"; a difficult enough process alongside in harbour, but we managed
and then off around a Force 10, to Hobart
