Antarctica holds 70% of the world’s fresh water and 90% of the world’s ice, so you’d think Mawson would have no problems with its water supply, but being on the driest continent on earth does raise some special challenges. All of our water here is in a solid form which is really only good for keeping your beer cold. Funny thing is that it’s always a pain if you’re in the bar and want ice for your rum and coke. We’ve asked for an ice machine but no-one ever takes us seriously. Really, who wants to get all rugged up and go outside and hack away a piece of ground just to get a bit of ice? Most times we just go without and suffer in silence. Well, not real silence.

Seeing that I’m a plumber on station one of my daily tasks is to make sure our water storage tanks are full and in liquid form. Our water is sourced from a melt well using a Rodriguez Melt Bell. There would only be a few people in the world who would have any idea about what I’m talking about and even fewer who have ever used one. If you’ve read this far then keep reading as you could learn about a rare practice that may be invaluable to you one day. Or not!

The simple explanation of how it all works is that the melt bell is a sealed metal tank that has an inlet and outlet on the top and a pump on the inside. The bell is placed in a small hole in the ice and hot water is circulated through it 24 hours a day which makes it hot and starts melting the ice around it. When there is enough melted water around the bell we remotely turn on the pump and it sucks water in through the bottom and sends it off to our water storage tanks. The bell has hoses connected to it and is attached to pontoon with a winch so it doesn’t just disappear down into the depths of Antarctica. As the bell melts it way down through the ice it creates a “well” of water for us to draw from. Our current well is about 10 metres deep with a shaft about 2 metres wide which opens up to be a 5 metre wide cavern at the bottom. Each day we are able to draw off enough melted water to keep the station running and keep us clean and hydrated. We need about 2000 litres per day and have about 270,000 litres of storage in three big tanks.

The water tanks have their own heated building so that our supply doesn’t freeze. The water is then pumped in a circuit around the whole station in heated, insulated pipes so it doesn’t freeze. Being involved in the whole process from sourcing the water to getting it into my glass is pretty cool and I’d say a pretty expensive exercise. You actually get quite thirsty down here because it’s so dry but our supply stock looks pretty secure so I think we’ll be fine for a while.