The three old fishermen were very brave. They carried gas tanks on their backs and held burners in their hands and chased the seal.
The flame coming out of the front of the flamethrower was three or four meters long.
Although the leopard seal is the top marine predator in the Antarctic world, it will fight any prey in Antarctica. However, no matter how powerful it is, it is just an animal and has never seen such a posture.
Seeing the flames, it was so scared that it quickly twisted its fat body and turned around to flee, roaring in pain as it ran, as if it was really burned by the fire. It almost crawled to the depths of the ice floe, and then with a plop, it dived into the white snow and disappeared without a trace.
The brave Adélie penguin had a similar reaction to the leopard seal. It was originally standing at a distance, waiting to see if it could sit back and watch the fight and then take advantage of it.
As a result, seeing that the seal was scared to death, it also ran away.
While running, its clumsy body couldn't stand steadily, and it fell forward and fell on the ice.
When the three old fishermen saw this, they immediately turned off their flamethrowers, looked at each other, and smiled on their faces.
There was also a young crew member whistling at the Adélie penguin that had fallen to the ground and was trying to get up.
"Okay, stop making trouble." After using a flamethrower to drive away the leopard seal, Xiang Yang called his crew members who were making trouble, "Watch carefully for a while and see how others fish on the ice. Watch carefully and learn from them."
Xiang Yang's crew members finally calmed down and nodded in agreement hurriedly.
"Chen Qingsheng, give me a harpoon." Xiang Yang stretched out his hand to Chen Qingsheng.
Upon hearing this, Chen Qingsheng immediately handed Xiang Yang a harpoon. He was a little excited. "Captain, are you going to the edge of the ice to spear fish?"
Xiang Yang shook his head and thrust the harpoon hard into the ice.
As a result, there was a not-too-loud sound, and Xiang Yang's hand was hurt, but the ice surface was intact.
"Captain, do you want to drill a hole in the ice? This is not the way you drill a hole in the ice." Chen Qingsheng immediately said.
"Of course I know that this is not the way to drill holes in the ice. I just wanted to test the hardness of the ice to see if it is durable enough for humans to survive. Now it seems pretty good." Xiang Yang smiled brightly, then handed the harpoon to Chen Qingsheng beside him.
"Go back to the boat and take down the canvas backpacks I prepared." Xiang Yang ordered.
Before coming, Xiang Yang prepared a large number of moisture-proof backpacks, each of which was filled with a large amount of food and water, as well as tents, sleeping bags, daggers and other survival necessities.
Gao Chuang saw Xiang Yang organizing people to set up tents and joked, "Boss Xiang, you don't want you and your crew to live on this ice, do you?"
"Looking at Mr. Gao's attitude, we will have to stay on this ice for at least several days. It is not convenient to always go back and forth between the boat and the water. These tents of mine are fixed tents. They can be set up or put down very quickly." Xiang Yang said with a smile.
Gao Chuang nodded. "We will indeed stay on this ice floe for about a week. Based on my previous experience, there will be a large amount of fishery resources under large pieces of ice like this. After the preparations are completed, I will leave this ice and start fishing. Wasn't your purpose before you set out to catch Antarctic krill? You will be able to see a large amount of Antarctic krill in a while."
Xiang Yang had people set up the tent and put the sleeping bags inside, but he did not do any further work to keep them warm. The main purpose of the tent was to rest when they were tired from work during the day. It was impossible for them to sleep on the ice at night.
It was really too troublesome to travel back and forth to the boat over water during the day, so Xiang Yang needed a temporary base.
But at night, it would be a bit unreasonable if the crew who have worked all day were not allowed to go back to the heated cabins on the ship to sleep and have a good rest.
On the other side, Gao Chuang was also directing people to do similar work, but he did not set up a tent. He just asked people to spread a large blanket on the ice, and then covered the blanket with a thick layer of nylon. On the nylon were a large amount of food and water, as well as power generation equipment, oxygen tanks, oxygen masks and the like.
"Captain Xiang, this is what our General Manager Gao asked us to send to you." At this moment, several young crew members carried a box and put it in front of Xiang Yang.
"What's this?"
"This is a snowproof suit. It can be put on your feet to prevent snow from entering your shoes." said the fisherman.
Xiang Yang opened the box and saw that, as expected, the box was filled with a large number of snow-proof suits that could be put on the feet, protecting the knees tightly on the top and covering the entire shoe surface on the bottom.
"Thank Mr. Gao for me." Xiang Yang thanked after receiving the things.
"No need, these things are not worth much money, and we have plenty of them on our ship." The leading crew member said nonchalantly.
There are only two seasons in Antarctica: winter from April to October and summer from November to March of the following year.
Now is the summer in Antarctica, with long days and short nights. So even though there are large pieces of floating ice on the sea, the temperature is not very cold. The temperature on the entire sea surface is generally between minus 15 degrees Celsius and zero degrees Celsius, which is much warmer than the outdoors in northern my country in winter.
After Xiang Yang and his men were fully armed, they didn't feel cold at all. Some of them even felt sweat coming out of their backs.
Of course, it was daytime.
At night, the temperature changes completely, and in some places it can even reach minus 35 degrees Celsius to minus 70 degrees Celsius.
This is also one of the main reasons why Xiang Yang did not do any warming work in the tent and did not plan to let the crew sleep in the tent at night. No matter how much warming work was done, it would not be as warm as in the cabin on the ship.
After the base was built, Gao Chuang sent dozens of people, divided into more than a dozen teams. Each person carried a gas pipe on his back and held a flamethrower. They patrolled around the ice surface to protect the safety of the camp. The rest of the people began to cook using electric heating equipment.
Seeing Gao Chuang and his men preparing food, Xiang Yang said to his crew, "Before we start chipping the ice, let's eat something to replenish our energy. This includes the food in the cabin on the ship. Just eat as much as you can. Eat whatever you want."
The crew did not cheer happily.
Xiang Yang did not prepare any power generation equipment on this trip, and they had no way to live or cook on the ice, so they could only eat cold dry food.
Fortunately, Xiang Yang prepared a wide variety of food this time, such as cold noodles, cold skin, cold dishes, braised dishes and canned food, many of which taste better when eaten cold.