Antarctic expeditioners usually take great care not to risk falling through sea ice, but not so this year, when one group of intrepid researchers cut a hole in the ice and dived in to the frigid Southern Ocean to mark the winter solstice.
Teams at Australia’s Casey, Davis and Mawson stations took Tuesday off work to celebrate the shortest day of the year with a range of games, pantomimes and a gourmet dinner.
“During the depths of winter the sun doesn’t appear above the horizon, so we essentially have six weeks where we only have twilight for a few hours a day,” Mawson Station leader Jenny Wressell said.
Revellers also got wet to mark the solstice in Tasmania, but with one striking difference. The swimmers braving the 10C seas off Hobart did so without swimming costumes.
Some 670 people stripped for a mass nude swim at daybreak in Hobart.
Finally, testicles have returned to more regular positions after the #DarkMofo Winter Solstice Nude Swim this morn! pic.twitter.com/2XWnqJCe3h
— T.J.Ray (@TJRay16) June 21, 2016
“You don’t want to get too worried about how you look, or what effect the cold might be having on parts of your body,” one swimmer, named only as Nathan, said after taking a chilly dip in the Derwent river.
“It’s invigorating afterwards, but you need to prepare yourself – take your clothes off, focus on the something in the distance and run into the water.”
It was the fourth time the Nude Solstice Swim had been held as part of the Museum of Old and New Art’s (Mona) Dark Mofo winter festival.
Sunrise in Hobart where the water temp is 11 Celsius for the @monamuseum #DarkMofo nude solstice swim #aapweather pic.twitter.com/4AiPF2yMjG
— Andrew Drummond (@a_drumm) June 21, 2015
More than 1100 people had registered for the event but steady overnight rain kept some would-be swimmers away as the air temperature hovered around 9C - and felt like 6C .
Organiser Kate Gould said: “It’s a celebration of the winter solstice and the longest night of the year of any capital city happens in Hobart and they (swimmers) come after the longest night to get in the water, get naked and get back to nature.”
Over in New Zealand, meteorologists predicted the day would be the nation’s warmest winter solstice on record, with Auckland close to beating its record of 17.6C.
On the shortest day of the year Sydney experienced about 10 hours of daylight and 14 hours of darkness.
