Penguin Pete's Diary
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8/3/01 - Polar Bird - Davis Station
Davis station is only a days steaming from Zhongshan. We are here to pick up the last of the summerers, drop off some heavy equipment, and to pick up lots of rubbish to return to Aust. for disposal. I have volunteered to work on one of the barges for the few days we are here. Lots of fun. We get to guide the containers and palates of equipment onto and off the barge, hook on the hooks and all that stuff. I even get to wear a hard hat! Just like a worker!!
The barge can hold a full size shipping container with a gross weight of 20 tonnes. Not a bad effort. It is powered by two water jet engines, which makes it a bit different to a normal boat to drive. I had a few goes at driving, and didn't do too badly. There is a throttle control for each jet, and two deflector controls. One for forward or reverse, and one for sideways. Driving it is as easy as pushing all those buttons and knobs in the right order, and remembering that in reverse the steering is opposite to what you would expect due to the arrangement of the deflectors.