Lake Vanda is a lake in Wright Valley, Victoria Land, Ross Dependency, Antarctica. The lake is 5 km long and has a maximum depth of 69 m. On its shore, New Zealand maintained Vanda Station from 1968 to 1995. Lake Vanda is a hypersaline lake with a salinity more than ten times that of seawater, more than the salinity of the Dead Sea, and perhaps even more than of Lake Assal (Djibouti), which is the world’s most saline lake outside of Antarctica. Lake Vanda is also meromictic, which means that the deeper waters of the lake don’t mix with the shallower waters. There are three distinct layers of water ranging in temperature from 23 °C on the bottom to the middle layer of 7 °C and the upper layer ranges from 4–6 °C. It is only one of the many saline lakes in the ice-free valleys of the Transantarctic Mountains. The longest river of Antarctica, Onyx River, flows West, inland, into Lake Vanda. There is a meteorological station at the mouth of the river.
Lake Vanda Station was well known for The Royal Lake Vanda Swim Club. Visitors to Lake Vanda Station could dip into the high salinity waters when the icecap edge melted out during summer to form a ‘moat’, and receive a Royal Lake Vanda Swim Club shoulder patch. Vanda staff would assist the melt by hacking out a ‘pool’. Many dignitaries and politicians were inducted into the club, The dip had to be naked, complete immersion, witnessed by a ‘Vandal’ (Vanda Station staffer) and with no restrictions on photography to qualify. Allowed a natural figleaf, but it had to be natural and also naturally green without artificial aid.
