Tomorrow I'm leaving on a jet plane. So I reckon this will be my last post at this site until (if?) I return back to Antarctica in either August or October.
The first time I left Antarctica, after spending 14 months washing dishes, I swore, cursed and stated I'd never come back again. And, for good reason.
After spending that long doing mind numbing work without sunlight and stimulation my brain was swiss cheese. I couldn't spell, talk, type or write. I couldn't wait to smell a flower or see grass. Now, I want to see night. I haven't seen a star in five months and the man in the moon is a stranger.
There's no need to check back in here for a few months.
I have a room to clean and then a plane to catch.
Thanks for reading.
A season has wound up and the time is winding down. The last time I left here I left in what can only be described as “Toasted.” This is how you’re described if you’re dancing with one foot in the world of sanity and the other foot hop scotching through the out door of what’s sane and opening the exit and landing insanity.
There are a lot of reasons to suppose why my brain was burnt, crisped and labeled toasted after spending 14 months as a dishwasher. It could have been the job, living in darkness or not knowing I was living with 16 cavities in my mouth from lack of sunshine, fruit and an over indulgence of sugar. Most likely plenty could be supposed about the psych of living at the bottom of the world. A group of scientists have tried to test the brains, bodies, memories and sex drives of those of us who have wintered in Antarctica. I don’t know what their research came up with, but I think my friend Kristen summed it up best. She said, after seeing me for the first time in over a year, “Phil, I think you lost your mojo.”
This trip, this time back to Antarctica I quested after the lost mojo. Coming back to Antarctica with a better job under different circumstances I hoped to find my mojo cryogenically frozen somewhere on this continent. Leaving Antarctica as a dishwasher I swore I’d never return here again. I’d seen Hell when it froze over and there was no need to ice skate with Devil again.
This meant on the big scoreboard of life it was:
Antarctica 1
Phil 0
Coming back to Antarctica was necessary to settle the score.
Kristen knew I was on a quest as much as an adventure and she let me stay in her house for three months in Utah, rent free, so I could get back down here. My only payment for living with Kristen was to mow her lawn once a week.
It’s now been almost five months since I’ve seen green grass. When I mowed Kristen’s lawn I tried to etch patterns into the grass like you’d see on the field at Fenway Park. Mowing the lawn wasn’t a chore, it was a vitamin supplement I stored in my brain for moments like today when the only thing green I see is money, snot or my Pickle.
According to Phil's Donut of Misery, the time has been short and I’m now a short timer with less than a week to go.
As the saying goes in Antarctica, “The time flies, but the minutes drag.”
I can’t believe the months have cruised by as the minutes drag until I leave.
When I left Kristen’s home the lawn was mowed in the shapes of diamonds and diagonals and Ruth was standing on what would have been the pitcher’s mound doing everything shy of kicking me in the ass to hit the road. She helped pack my bags, clean my car and shop for the necessities of living South of 60 degrees latitude. Antarctica Round Two and once again she didn’t ask me to stay because she knew I had to go. When I get back to Utah she and I are hitting the road to go camping and spend her birthday on the 28th of February in Las Vegas. Yes, you read that right. It’s Ruth’s birthday and we’re going to Las Vegas to celebrate her birthday. I feel like I hit the jackpot.
Wrapping up Antarctica has meant checking off final hikes, one more times and last times. My roommate Martha leaves on Monday, then I leave on Friday. She and I did a final hike out to Castle Rock. A large jutting molar like rock that overlooks the icy covered Ross Sea. I brought a pocket full of Blow Pops, for some reason these are my new obsession. It’s a lollipop and it’s gum.
I chew through these things like I know my sister is a dentist and the only way to get an E-ticket to nitrous oxide is to keep getting cavities.
I’m planning on coming back next year, with Ruth. Leaving Antarctica this time, I feel the score has been settled:
Antarctica 1
Phil 1
It was a much shorter trip and instead of missing the sunshine, I’m looking forward to seeing my first night, first star and moon.
Without the support of friends and family, I couldn’t be here. Thank you.
The first star I see in New Zealand, I’m not going to wish to find my mojo. Because there’s no need to ask for what has been found.
Ship offload is over. We started working 12 hour shifts on Thursday and ended on Sunday. This means I spent 48 hours in a Pickle. And, I’m happy to report, I still love my Pickle.
As a Pickle operator, my job was to crawl in and out of Milvans plucking pallets out of the tight metal tunnel that had held this cargo since it left Port Hueneme. A lot of the load had shifted or tilted or collapsed under the weight of boxes stacked on top of other boxes. This meant all four Pickle controls became my best friend. Tilt, Rotate, Lift and Shift.
Working in a Pickle for that many hours was a lot more physically and mentally taxing than I could have imagined. In fact, my brain and body hurt so much right now that I’ll show you photos and tell the stories later.
After grabbing a pallet inside the Milvan my teammates, Stefan and Katie, then did all of the work. They had to look through the paperwork and figure out where each boxes' destination on station was located. Write the info on the box and then worry if this was the day they would be run over by their tired Pickle Driver. They also were outside in the cold, the pickle had heat.
SEE. SEE. There is no room to maneuver in a Milvan.
It didn’t matter if I washed the windows three times a day (once every four hours), the view was always the same.
It’s February. The weather has been beyond anything you would ever expect on the four-syllabled continent of Antarctica. The temperature reached 28 degrees with a wind chill of only 16. I just had to check the company home page to see the stats on the weather and was really surprised it was only 28 today.
On a day like this I don’t wear a coat. It’s very warm. A light jacket will keep you warm and a baseball cap to keep the 24 hours of sunlight out of your eyes. I really thought the high for the day was going to be up in the 30s. The body does amazing things when you consider the 20s and 30s are supposed to be cold. I suppose if I wanted to fulfill one of my goals in life, I could fly home from Antarctica during the midseason and go to Lambeau Field and watch the Green Bay Packers play football. On the day I showed up I’d want the Frozen Tundra to be freezing cold. Cue the snow and Brett Favre with a hand warmer around his waist and then put me in the stands with my face painted green and not wearing a shirt soaking up the warmth as it snows... Maybe next year.
Now that I have just shy of three weeks left down here, instead of winding down, we’re getting ready to wind up. Starting Thursday what’s known as “Vessel Offload” will hit McMurdo. This means a supply cargo ship called the American Tern will pull up to our harbor carrying all of the goods: Food, vehicles, toilet paper and the much needed mechanical pencils which we ran out of in Central Supply three weeks ago.
The vessel offload can take anywhere from five to nine days, and during this time period we will all work 12-hour days. Not only do we get to work 12-hour days, but since the ship is coming in on Thursday this also means we will also have to work on our only day off, Sunday.
Once the ship is unloaded, reloaded and heading back to the U.S. of A, instead of having an “After Vessel Party” or even a well needed day off, we’ll be sent home. If the teamsters or longshoremen ran this place there would be some broken kneecaps in management over these violations of working codes. But this is Antarctica. It’s not a country. It’s a continent. If God had worked for the contractor of McMurdo, Raytheon, God wouldn’t have been allowed to rest on the seventh day. It would not have been in his contract.
All of our jobs are also rearranged during vessel offload. Instead of working for Central Supply, I now simply fall under the work center of “The Ball Park.” This is an area on station shaped like—you guessed it—a baseball diamond. Since I missed this year’s football season I’ve considered taking off my shirt, and shaving my chest hair to read—Go Raytheon.
In the ballpark there were three jobs I could have been assigned.
A checker walks around with a clipboard assuring that a box that says it has 257 cases of toilet paper on the checklist really has all of the one-ply paper the packing list promised. There’s also a forklift guide. This person is the eyes and director of the person driving a forklift. Because there is so much activity during offload all forklift operators are assigned an extra set of eyes: Safety is No Accident.
Lastly, one person gets to drive the forklift—or Pickle. For 12 hours this poor schmuck sits on a cushionless bench, operating only the best piece of machinery ever invented—the Pickle. Some people hate this job, because it’s cramped, cold and smelling of exhaust. My boss, who calls me “Speshul,” laughed when he assigned me the task of driving the Pickle. Well, thanks for the briar patch, Mr. Boss. I love the Pickle. It’s so loud inside a Pickle no one can talk to you through the noise and three layers of earplugs—what’s not to love?
I’ll be driving the Pickle during this 12 hour six day stretch in the Ball Park (with or without shirt) simply taking this large vehicle into a very tight closed in container called a milvan sucking exhaust and adjusting the forks left and right, up and down, counter and clockwise, plus the tilt. If I get stuck in the milvan, I’ll have to get unstuck before it fills up with fumes, leaving me to see Johnny Carson live—so to speak.
It’s not that I’m speshul or dare I say, “Retarded.” No. No. This isn’t why I enjoy the Pickle so much. The reason is simple: No matter what I’m doing down here, no matter how bad it seems as I’m tripping the Carbon Monoxide light fantastic, the one thing I’m not doing is washing dishes.
Life is good at 28 degrees.