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Sabrina wonders (and so do we) how anyone could lend her name to this icy "waistland." Antarctic veteran Lieut. Richard Willing was only too willing to explain how she gained a place on the map.
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SABRINA'S not normally a name you would associate with Antarctica, but there it is on the map between 115 degrees and 117 degrees East.
And our POST girl (above) didn't have anything to do with it!
Sabrina did not know about her icy geographic position until she visited the Australian Antarctic research ship, Magga Dan, just before it sailed for Wilkes Land last month.
"How wonderful," she said, looking at the figures 1939 after the place name on the map,
"Two years ago they were my figure measurements. I'm 18 around the waist and I used to be 39 round the bust."
A strip of land in Wilkes Land on the Indian Ocean, Sabrina is known as "The Flap" to members of our Antarctic expeditions.
The gazetteer says it was sighted in 1939 by John Balleny and rediscovered in 1931 by Sir Douglas Mawson but the story goes that it was originally named Sabrina by a Norwegian sea captain.
No one seems to know why he picked a name that would be world famous well over a century later, but Sabrina the girl is getting a big kick out of it.
Sabrina "The Flap" isn't as friendly as Sabrina the girl just now because it's covered in ice - and that's something we could never say about Sabby.
On the day the Magga Dan sailed, Army Lieut. Richard Willing had Sabrina christen his army "duck" by her name in a champagne ceremony on the ship's deck.
Lieut. Willing had already given the "duck" her name during a previous visit to the Antarctic.
"Seeing that both Sabrinas were in port together we thought it would be a good thing to make it official," he said.
Just then, Mrs Sykes (Sabrina's mother) popped out of a ship's door and said, "We have been asked to be stowaways on the next trip."
AND THE BOYS DOWN IN ARTARCTICA WOULD LOVE TO HAVE THEM!
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