No Phones. No Planes. No Internet. Not a Single Luxury.
A storm came blowing through town yesterday and temporarily knocked out our communications with the outside world. Right now it still isn't possible to make a phone call from Antarctica to the States. For some reason the Internet is working-now. I'll take advantage this situation and let you know what's happened.
Today we are walking around like it is Christmas. I've passed friends and strangers in the hallway and we are beaming. Even though today is the first really cold day since I've been here (Minus 47 with wind chill), we are all happy because the last flight just left.
This means no mail, no new people, no new diseases, no fresh vegetables etc... until the end of August. Cue scary music: Antarctica is Closed for the Winter.
I was one of the drivers who took the remaining 85 people to the airplane. They flew off to New Zealand, night and Summertime USA. We only get the Night.
Of the four drivers who took out the final passengers, it was my responsibility to be the time keeper and announcer of the last flight. This meant I had to pay attention to the radio transmissions and log the important minutes of approaching plane.
At 11:38 a.m. we all passengers and drivers drove away from McMurdo
At 11:43 a.m. the pilot radioed they were 175 miles out.
At 12: 17 p.m. someone over the radio said, "The plane will be slightly delayed. Believe it or not, the plane has diverted to take a sight seeing tour of the Dry Valleys."
12: 43 p.m. The plane landed.
1:06 p.m. we started loading the passengers. And at officially 1:43 p.m., Antarctica said, "Happy Wintering" as the plane left the ground.
I radioed the Chalet (the administration building where the big wigs work), because this was where the rest of the Winter community was waiting with champagne, and said, "Chalet, Chalet. Pop the corks. The plane is on the way."
On the other end of the walkie-talkie I heard loud cheers and, "Roger that Phil."
I was told the sight seeing pilots in their C-17 then flew over McMurdo twice, tipped their wings and headed North.
Driving back into town, I was following two other vehicles and it looked like I was driving in a cloud. The wind blew the snow so hard all I could see were the flags to guide my way and sometimes a vehicle. Then a flag. Then I'd fishtail through a snow bank and look for the next flag.
By the time I got back into town, the champagne bottles were empty and the Chalet was empty. In fact, the town is empty. There are around 200 people (I don't know the official count-Yet). Soon we'll all know each other quite well, in the mean time, through our balaclavas and frozen teeth we're saying, "Happy Winter."
The Delta is an Antarctic vehicle similar to a science fiction Star Wars-like ice-crawling-machine with its own turtleish personality. Make no mistake about it, though, a Delta is only futuristic in that Mad Max kind of way. A Delta is also a behemoth of a machine conceived and born with the United States Navy, back when safety took a back seat to functionality.
A Delta's tires are nearly as tall as I am and they are fat. These tires are the kind of fat you'd expect to see at an all-you can restaurant. The kind of fat small kids stop, stare and point at. The kind of fat Richard Simmons flies to visit. The kind of fat that is necessary to travel across Antarctica.
Riding in a Delta is like traveling in a car with beach balls for wheels. Spongy, bouncy and dangerous. If the driver of a Delta hits a snow mound, bump or divot in the ice road at a quick top speed of about 17 MPH, the Delta will toss its passengers around-sometimes there have been broken bones.
A Delta is like a bright orange turtle. The passengers (about 16) ride in the back shell of the turtle and the driver sits upfront as though in the head of the turtle. The passengers and the driver have walkie-talkies to communicate to each other in case the Delta bucks like a mechanical bull and breaks bones and strains backs. The last thing a driver wants to hear is a call out from his passengers. This means there's trouble. This means, "Oh Shit."
This is what I was told, because I am now a Delta Driver. There are people down here who driver all summer long. They're called "Shuttles." When the summer shuttle drivers need driven out to their plane, the Winter Supply Department shuttles the shuttle drivers. I work in Supply. Now I shuttle Shuttles.
I have ridden in the back of quite a few Deltas. It's like riding in a metal box and when the driver is careless, even Gandhi would want to kick his ass. It's no wonder on the walls of the Delta people who have survived trips in these vehicles sign their names on the walls. Scrawled out messages to love ones written out in sharpie with herky jerky penmanship tell the tales of who has been to Antarctica. Kind of like a graffiti family tree. Even though I've wanted to, I never put my name on the wall of a Delta. I always figured that was the kind of thing either assholes did or people who accomplished something great with the Delta. I was just a passenger, so I didn't want to be an ass.
Learning to drive the Delta, my instructor, Rick walked me around the vehicle pointing out everything that could go wrong. We had to climb a ladder and traverse a built in scaffolding to check all of the fluids-oil, hydraulic and transmission. Then he went around to all of the large bubbly tires and hand checked every lug nut to make certain the wheels would not fall off this large wagon.
[Side story: I thought Rick was crazy. Checking every lug nut to be certain the wheels wouldn't fall off the Delta. Do you ever check your lug nuts every time you get in a vehicle? Lug nut--How about Nut Job? Three hours after I completed my very thorough and anal drivers training with Rick, the back tire fell off another transport vehicle as it was going down a very and the only steep hill that you could drive on in McMurdo. The passengers said they thought they were going to careen off the cliff. As it turns out, we need more Ricks down here.]
The day after training, my Delta was assigned to drive over to the New Zealand Antarctic outpost, Scott Base, and pick the Kiwis up and then drive them about 45 minutes out to the Ice Runway called Pegasus.
Once all of the Kiwis were loaded into the back of my Delta, and just before I locked them in I said, "Welcome to my maiden voyage driving a Delta. You are my first ever real live passengers. Radio me on Channel 2 if you break any bones as we go over the Transition so I can get a head start to runaway from you. If you catch me, then let's not create an International by kicking my ass. "
Three women fainted and two men threw up when they heard a rookie was going to drive them over the dreaded "Transition."
The Transition is the point in the road where the island I live on, Ross Island, meets the frozen ice shelf of Antarctica. The ice shelf is a flowing sea of ice which moves and rubs against Ross Island. Driving over the Transition is the point where tragedy can occur. The Delta can simultaneously rock and bounce and buck going over the Transition.
After climbing the ladder to get into the cab, I released the air brakes, pulled one knob backwards that made the vehicle go forward and then jammed a larger knob into first, then second and finally to third gear.
As I approached the Transition I looked at the way the ice buckled and the road bent, then I carefully chose my line to descend onto the Ice Shelf. The wheels on a Delta don't steer like the front tires of a car. The Delta's wheels, both front and back, are on a fixed axle. A Delta turns by articulating. Hydraulics push or pull the front of the cab in the direction you turn the steering wheel.
Once I picked my line, this vehicle wasn't going to turn on a dime if I needed to avoid a large bump.
Slowly I dropped into second gear and road over the Transition. What I felt was a smooth descent quickly turned hair raising when I heard over the radio in a New Zealand accent, "Delta driver Phil. Delta driver Phil. The Kiwi's need your attention."
I picked up my radio, fearing I was going about to get a New Zealand Rugby style whooping, "This is Phil" was all my nerves could muster for the radio."
"Cheers mate," the Kiwi on the mic said, "that was the smoothest trip through the Transition we've ever had."
That had me shining brighter than the sun off of the snow and ice I was driving on. Now that I was on the flat terrain, I tossed the vehicle into fourth and cruised at 17 mph out to the runway.
The only other crack over the radio was an alert there was a seal in road and to watch out for him. On flat white a black baby seal really sticks out. I didn't need the alert to see him.
Honestly, I felt high. Here I was driving a rig in Antarctica, seeing a seal on the Ice Shelf, driving out to a runway made of sheer ice. Soon I would see a C-17 giant cargo plane land and then take off on this runway, kicking up snow and taking another 135 people out of McMurdo.
Driving back into town, I was just a big orange dot on a white piece of paper. It was me and my Delta. There wasn't another person around me for as far as I could. Just white and white and white. One of my friends who left on yesterday's flight said working in Antarctica makes her feel like an astronaut on planet Earth.
That's how I felt in my Delta. A Delta with the words written in the back cab with herky jerky Kiwi penmanship, "Phil is the best Delta Driver in Antarctica. 2006."
Even though my roommate on station, Tad, is also my best friend, sharing a small room with another man is confining and trying. It almost feels like my life is a High School Scare Tactic Prison project when I come home from work. My cellmate and I only have enough room in our room for one person to walk around and to get ready for our 10 hour shift.
In order to maneuver in the morning, I wake up 20 minutes sooner than Tad, and then I'm out the door just as his alarm is going off. They say that eating breakfast is the best way to start the day, and waking up with enough time to enjoy breakfast before work is delightful. Leaving just as Tad's alarm goes off means that Tad and I never stand next to each other in our boxer shorts, scratching our bellies, with morning breath as we don several layers of clothing so we can leave the cocoon of our covers and enter the chill of Antarctica air. Breakfast is great. Not seeing Tad naked in the morning is even better.
During the Winter everyone on station is allowed to have their own room. As people start to empty out of McMurdo, the housing office post the Winter rooms as they become available. Since the last flight out of here is on February 28 and there are still over 200 people on station who won't be here in a week, this means the possibility remains that some rooms will not become available to Winter Overs for a week.
I got lucky. My room opened up at 4:30 p.m. yesterday and I began moving in at 5:31 p.m. m. I would have started sooner, but at 4:30 p.m. I still had one more hour of work in my 10 hour day.
The rooms are set up so Tad will be my "suitemate." In five days when his room becomes available, we will share a common bathroom and we each have a sink in our room.
I feel so rejuvenated. I have my own room. And, I got lucky, since my room is a corner room it is 3.5 feet bigger than the average room on station. This means I am able to split my room into a living room and a bedroom.
I also got unlucky. My room is right next to the stairwell and above the boiler room. This room gets so hot in the Winter it could single-handedly be the cause of melting polar ice caps. Then, since I'm near the stairwell, I wake up whenever I'm asleep and someone else on the third floor is awake. The stairs are metal and it's kind of like I live in a tympani drum, but guess what: It's My tympani drum.
My New View for the next seven months:
Horror movies and speculation on late night talk radio shows have asserted there are aliens buried beneath the ice of Antarctica.
Maybe truth is stranger than fiction.
We all thought the mother ship was landing to bring her frozen Aliens home when we saw this in our sky:
Maybe the large antenna/satellite communication we have on station is used for something other than communication back to the states?
Even the day to day in Antarctica is uniquely Antarctican.
On one hand this is just a story about using a sink, brushing my teeth and a night out at the bar. But, since this happened in Antarctica, there is a twist. A global Russian twist.
Tooth brushing has been on my mind ever since I arrived in McMurdo because I have had to brush my teeth the old fashioned way. My electric toothbrush and all of my toiletries were stolen from my backpack somewhere between LA and Christchurch. The thieving perpatraitors weren't in search of good dental hygiene and Ivory soap, but since I packed my backpack with all of my bathroom needs on the outside of my pack, the tempting zippers were too enticing to a stinky, smelly baggage handler.
They got my toothbrush and I got to Antarctica in fear of my next trip to the dentist in October. Oh, and my sister is my dentist. The last time I Wintered in Antarctica, between the dark, no fresh fruit and vegetables, herbal toothpaste, flossing only once a week and several other unknown factors (including and not limited to possible UFO/Aliens under the ice), I visited my sister and had 16 cavities. That's pert near Hillbilly Status.
This is why I've been thinking about brushing my teeth. For the last three weeks I've had to brush my teeth with a manual toothbrush (Pause: Just for a second. Right now, wherever you are sitting and mime the act of brushing your teeth--This is important).
Pause
Great.
After all of my toiletries turned up missing, I called the greatest sister and dentist in the world and she said she'd send me a new automatic toothbrush.
Getting this toothbrush to Antarctica is no small feat with the short amount of time left in this season. After March First no mail will be coming in or out of this area until the end of August. That's a long time. That's a lot of plaque build up.
When my Oral-B Professional Care 8000 series patented-3D-oscillating-pulsating toothbrush arrived on Friday, I was thrilled. Not only were my teeth going to get a good scrubbing, but I would also get to show off my pearly whites at the bar that night.
In McMurdo there are three bars. The bars are very similar to Goldilocks and the Three Bears. One bar is quite soft. This is the Coffee House where only wine and coffee drinks are sold. This used to be the old officer's club when McMurdo was run by the Navy. The Coffee House is good for quiet nights where you won't mind running into your boss.
The medium bar is Gallaghers. A few to 10 Winters ago, just after the last flight left Antarctica, a McMurdoite died. His name was Chuck Gallagher. And, just like the mail and planes that don't come to or leave Antarctica during the Winter, Gallagher stayed put in McMurdo until a plane came months later in August. And for this, they named the nonsmoking bar after Chuck.
Finally, the bar that can be too hard, is Southern Exposure. It is said there are only three smells in Antarctica. The smell of fuel. The smell of the Galley. And the smell of smoke from Southern Exposure. Even though I don't smoke, Southern is the bed this Goldilocks choses, because Southern is where we play poker.
Friday night was not only a big night because of my shiny teeth, but Friday was also the first night bars would be open in McMurdo after shutting down for a week during Vessel offload. The management figures that if we're working 12 hour shifts to get the ship unloaded, we might be more productive if the bars are closed during this week. Sometimes "The Man" has good ideas.
Plus, since we'd just worked overtime unloading our supplies for the next year, one of the crates we opened up contained the new supply of alcohol. For the past couple of months there has been a liquor shortage with rationing of alcohol at the Station. It got to the point that there was only gin and tequila available this last month.
On Friday night the bar was stocked from Absolut to Zinfandel with new booze.
Drink.
Drank.
Drunk.
Since I was playing cards and had just finished working more in one week than I'd worked in the last six months, and needing to be to work in the morning, I took it easy. Others did not. But it was the group of Russians visiting from the ice breaker the Kraisin who thought drinking in Antarctica was going to be an Olympic event.
Russians were falling off their chairs. Russians were dancing around the table and Russians were speaking in Russian and we didn't know what the hell was going on.
Then, I had to go to the bathroom.
I did my business while a Russian was throwing up in the bathroom sink. No sooner had I zipped up, the Russian was motioning me to the sink.
"Comrade, Comrade," he may have said in his post USSR ways, "I don't know how to work the sink and I am covered in my own vomit."
I don't know if this is what he said exactly, but through body language, I was pretty certain if I was him and I was covered in my own vomit and didn't know how to work a sink that this is what I would have said.
I showed him the modern U.S. technology of a sink that you push down on instead of turning to get water.
"Democracy. Capitalism." I said to him as I turned the water on by pressing down.
When the faucet automatically turned off using its water saving device, he was still stinky.
"Consumerism," I said, turning the sink back on hoping to get a chance to wash my hands after he de-chunked.
And then, he asked me for a toothbrush, because his breath stunk of stomach bile. Perhaps he asked for a toothbrush, keep in mind we had to rely on body language to communicate to each other and earlier you practiced the motion of brushing your teeth.
Pause: Try that motion again.
There were only two of us in the bathroom, on a Friday night. In a bar. He did the motion of brushing his teeth. He said something, maybe, "Do you have any Crest or Colgate? I see by your teeth you must use the Oral-B Pulsating 8000. I want to brush my teeth."
If he said any of this, then he kept saying it by repeating the mime for tooth brushing.
I said, "In your language, you might want to brush your teeth, but in my language that motion means. Niet. Niet. Niet."
I washed my hands a few hours later.
Vessel Offload has finished. This means no more rocking the 12 hour shift that turned day into day and night into day. With the sun shining 24 hours a day it just doesn't seem right to call what I just did "Working the night shift."
During the two weeks when I worked 12 hours through the time of 7 p.m. to 7 a.m, midnight became noon and today became tomorrow so quickly it was difficult to keep track of today. Usually when I go into work on Tuesday, I get home from work on Tuesday. But, working the night shift, you end a work day, sleep, and then then wake up to the same day. It's like Ground Hog Day without the romantic comedy, humor and Bill Murray. Starting work on Tuesday and then finishing on Wednesday only added to the confusion.
Then, toss in the whole "Antarctica is a day ahead of the states" and my hazy, lazy 12 hour brain couldn't compute the work day math. It really came to a head on Superbowl Sunday that took place in Antarctica at Noon on Monday.
"Superbowl Monday" has the same ring to it as saying "Christmas Eve" on July 23rd.
To break it down, probably more for my sake than yours: Today is Tuesday at 9:15 a.m. I finished work last night at noon/midnight and I don't have to return to work until Thursday at 7:30 a.m. Not only does this mean I get two and 1/2 days off in a row (my longest vacation until October), but it also means saying goodbye and goodnight to a small group of Antarcticans who work when we sleep. It also feels like nine at night and soon this needs to feel like the morning or I'll feel like poo.
The biggest benefit of working around the clock is I have now met the people who drive the heavy machinery with the backup beepers by my bedroom window at Midnight (their/our noon). I took down names and numbers and Thursday at Noon when I get back to work, I'm driving by their dorm room.
Beep. Beep. Wake up John. Wake up Mark. Beep. Beep. Wake up David you big jerk. I'm back on the day shift.
The American Tern came steaming into McMurdo today. And when I say, "steaming" I mean it. The ship hit the harbor so hard that the pier was knocked back about 10 feet, and it had they spent the morning rebuilding this large, manmade floating piece of ice so the trucks and people could safely unload the boat.
This means alls of Antarctica will soon have things we've run out of like decks of cards, Jack Daniels (and every other kind of alcohol except Root Beer Schnapps).
It will take about four days to unload all of these crates, millvans or cans and then another three days to load all of the trash we've accumulated over the last year. To say the American Tern is going to be full of shit on its journey north is true. All waste, including processed human waste, is taken out of Antarctica to be recycled or disposed.
My job for ship offload is called "Materials Handler for Galley Pad." It could also be called very tedious. My team will open up every box of food (at least 50-70 of those millvans you see in the photo are for the Galley) and label what kind of potatoes, meats or frozen vegetables have been shipped to us.
This is considered to be one of the worst jobs during vessel offload, because not only is it cold here (Google: Antarctica) but we have to count and label all of the frozen food that comes off the vessel. Hundreds of pounds of frozen meat doesn't say "Grade A" until I say that it says, "Grade A."
Before opening up all of the food, we first had to get the truck and a couch so we would have a proper place to take our 15 minute breaks.
During the day we're mandated to work 12 hours. This means I'm working a 12 hour day on the night shift. It also means my break is almost over. And I need to get to the couch.
so, Stay Warm
Phil
P.S. I don't know if this will work, but a person down here video taped some auroas and this is how it will look in the winter when it's dark 24/7.
If this link doesn't work, please let me know so I can remove it from the site. If it does work--Enjoy!