On February 1, 2003 there were nearly 1,200 people living in McMurdo. You can look at that as 1,200 people with as many personalities, friendships, life experiences or opportunities to take their cash in a quick game of cards, but I saw each one of these living entities as dishes. Stacks and stacks of dishes.
It didn't take long to do the math that each person used, on average, seven items of cutlery per meal. One person using a knife, fork, spoon, cup, cup (the glasses are very small here. Most meals require three glasses. Two is a safe average) tray and plate really adds up when there are 1,200 people. Once someone said seven was a high average since they only ate one bowl of oatmeal and coffee in the morning. And I said, jerk, that's one bowl, one spoon. Do you use creamer? I washed that container. The pan you scooped your oatmeal from will be in my pot room. The larger pan the cook used to cook your pan is stacked back there as well, with the the container you used to drink milk. The container used to get the milk to put in a container, I'll wash, too. Behind every good cup of coffee and bowl of oatmeal, nearly 26 utensils are used.
After my rant, this person suggested I got a new job and reckoned I should up the average to eight. I'll stick to seven. Just to be conservative.
In the last few weeks Antarctica is beginning to see a lot of change. The first sunset was on February 20. It set for about 15 minutes at 2:30 a.m. Now the sun just seems to cruise around the horizon saying, "Soon I'll be gone. Take one last look. I can give you the longest shadows you've ever seen. But I still won't give you heat."
Also, nearly one thousand people have left McMurdo. I'm a person in a frozen ghost town. Instead of working 10 hours a day, I'm down to 8-9 hours my hands are still crinkled, cracked and dry from all the work, but, with one thousand less people eating three meals a day, my hands are 21 thousand times less crinkled, cracked and dry.
Stuck in the ice, during the long months of Winter, the crew of the Endurance were bored, luckily, entertainment comes easily in Antarctica, so the entire lot shaved their heads and overnight they were the Bald Crew of the Endurance. What fun; What excitement; What's that?
Not much has changed.
On January 1, 2003 I entered a mustache growing competition. At first the mustaches could be any length. Then, over the coming weeks we had to shave our faces until we were left with only a Charlie Chaplin sized caterpillar growth on our upper lip. Not since my hair was cut to resemble my 1983 idol Rick Springfield do I recall a time where I looked so awful.
My inch long blonde mustache was barely recognizable on my white dish weathered face, so I tried to dye the stubble a darker color. There is very little good hair care product in Antarctica, but one of my friends who worked with the science group studying seals, had some "Black Seal Dye" used to mark the seals they had studied. Come to find out, seal dye and people dye are two different beasts. I was left with a rash on my lip and a mustache colored like a zebra. The weirdest side effect, though, was my ability to balance beach balls on my nose.
By the end of January of the 20 people who entered the mustache contest only eight of us were man enough to go the distance. These eight Antarcticans had the moxy to finish what they had started. The fighting spirit of the Endurance crew. And, more importantly, we were the only eight in the contest without girlfriends.
One of the mustachios was crowned the winner by a silly ceremony. It may have been one of the only contests this winter where I didn't walk away with the $100 prize. I shaved my little mustache, took off the seal homing beacon and was glad to know this stage of ugly was over in my life.
And then, Penny took a photo of me. I haven't cut my hair in six months. The only person I dress to impress is Mother Nature. I don't own a comb; And when I wash my hair, I just use a bar of soap.
Penny showed me the picture and asked, singing a Rick Springfield song, "Do you wish that you had Jesse's Girl?"
Penny and I boarded the Polar Sea early on Monday and we unpacked boxes and helped to get the lab set up. By mid-afternoon we were all told the ship wouldn't be completing its science mission and we should be prepared to repack our gear and get off the ship.
You see, there's a problem. Ice. Lots of ice. There are eight miles of ice between McMurdo and the American Tern (The resupply cargo ship). The ice is thick, 8-13 feet, the ice is dense (the ice broke a 45 ton propeller on the Polar Sea) and it's everywhere.
There were several depressing hours where Penny and I felt like we were headed back to our janitorial and dishwashing lifestyles. Then, we were given the choice to board the ship now and help set up the lab or stay in McMurdo.
We unpacked our sailor caps and water wings.
The scientists we're teamed up with want to go out to the open water and collect their water samples, but, if the Polar Sea can't clear a channel for the Tern then all of McMurdo will close for the winter. The Tern was scheduled in McMurdo on February 1. According to what we've read from our McMurdo friends we're hearing the Tern should be there by Saturday (tomorrow).
But what we see is a different story. The Tern is simply a cargo ship. It is not reinforced to cruise through ice. We're surrounded by chunks of ice the size of city busses.
Which means Penny and I are on a ship, but it's more like a NASCAR bumper car ride. The Polar Sea is cruising back and forth over the 8 mile stretch of ice 24 hours a day. Its goal is to run bow first into every large chunk of ice between here and McMurdo.
Milk jumps out of your cup. Eyeballs rattle in their sockets. And it's recommended to strap yourself in to go to sleep, which is a joke, because sleep is only a memory from days ago.
Yesterday, when we were returning the Captain of the Tern to his ship, we reached a small spot of open water. The ocean was so deep it was black. Contrasted against the snow edges only made it darker. A group of Penguins swam by our ship. Penguins swim like porpoises diving in and out of the water. For a fraction of a second, as the penguin clears the water, you can almost see the penguin shout, "I can fly."
Along the ice edge three whales cruised and circled where about 30 penguins had popped up out of the water and landed on the ice. The Penguins would run and then slide on their bellies. They couldn't get far enough away from the whales.
I thought the whales where Killer Whales, but the scientist standing on the deck classified the genus, phyto-latin-sounding name as a Minky Whale.
The Polar Sea had parked herself in a large patch of ice so the Captain of the Tern was able to walk across the ocean back to his ship. A Captain walks proud, head held high, I half expected him to hand out loafs of bread to the penguins as he walked across the ocean.
When we headed back into the pack ice to crash and ram our way back to McMurdo, it was supper time.
We had enchiladas, chicken and cheese. I ate my meal quickly, then did what I'm trained to do.
On the USCGC POLAR SEA WAGB-11, I volunteered in the galley and did the dishes for 143 crew members.