There are up to 105 people on base at its height this season and so there is a need for a system of keeping tabs on where everyone is. The support staff are pretty constant however, people are coming and going into the field everyday and also visiting scientists are in an out of base for sometimes only a few days.

The picture above is of the tagging out board. The station is divided into zones and then there is local travel, boating, islands, field, flying etc. When you are moving from one zone to another you have to move your name tag to the correct zone. If you are going off station you have to write in a book your name and where you are going. All the support staff carry a VHF radio 24 hours a day as well and we have a repeater on reptile ridge which give channel 18 a much broader effective area. My radio is on at night as well as Claire’s my roommate as I am on SAR duty most of the time and Claire is the Dr.

Who ever is on gash is in charge of checking every half hour the book and sometimes a call will go out on VHF looking for someone who is over due or forgot to tag themselves back into the station. So a very effective way of keeping people safe.