Boondoggles

Every so often we get opportunities to get away from town on some form of fun vehicle. These trips used to be called "Boondoggles" but are now referred to as "Morale Trips".

Michiel won a "morale trip" by being one of the first ten people to volunteer to clean up the gym after the big Halloween party. He was invited to go one evening after work on "The Road to Nowhere".

The Road to Nowhere heads out over the permanent ice shelf ("white ice") towards Mt. Erebus, passing a Weddell Seal colony along the way. Passengers are transported in giant orange vehicles called Deltas.

Here are a couple of photos of a seal in front of the pressure ridges of the Erebus ice tongue.




The Road to Nowhere

Fun Vehicles

McMurdo has a fantastic collection of vehicles for use around town and on the sea ice.

Modified Ford Van

Pisten Bully - Average Speed: 12 miles per hour

Hagglund

Physiological Changes

There are some strange physical things that happen to you while you're down here. Most of them have to do with the extreme dryness – cracked skin, cuts that don’t heal without the help of Crazy Glue (an approved remedy, but not one you should use often), bloody noses, sore throats, and scaly scalps. Others are a bit stranger or grosser…the feeling of arthritis in your hands when you wake up, sticky, fluorescent-green snot and quick-growing fingernails and hair. Furthermore, almost everyone’s “normal” body temperature drops 1 degree Celsius to 36 or 96.8 degrees Fahrenheit.

I was talking to the Station physician one day and I mentioned that Michiel and I have noticed new gray hairs coming in faster than normal. He had noticed the same phenomenon with his own hair and explained that people seem to age faster here……great…...

Random thoughts

The other day, I was walking home from band practice and looked up into the sky. A skua flying overhead surprised me....not because I hadn't seen the large predatory gull-type birds before, but because I realized how uncommon it is to see other life forms here.

Skuas aren't very welcome by most McMurdo residents; they dive bomb anyone carrying unwrapped food and are particulary attracted to the blue cafeteria trays.

In other news...the Pole Traverse mission departed McMurdo on 11/11 at 11 AM. They are driving a tracked bulldozer-type vehicle across from here to the South Pole in order to (eventually) create a permanent surface route. They probe for crevasses and fill them in with snow along the nearly 1000 mile proposed route. After the route has been flagged (with bamboo poles and red or green flag), we will start sending cargo to the Pole by vehicle. This will free up the aircraft currently running these routes to support more trips to support scientists in field camps.

The Traverse Convoy - complete with living and dining units, scientific equipment and machines to blast enough snow to fill crevasses along the way.



It has been very warm lately - which has brought more snowfall than I've ever seen. McMurdo isn't a terribly attractive place, especially as the snow melts and the volcanic and rocky surfaces of the land become exposed - so the snowfall was a welcome respite from the dirt and rubble.

Scenes From Antarctica

Scott Base: The home of the Antarctic New Zealand Programme. There are about 60 people at their base, which is 1.6 miles (3 kms) away. The base bar is open to Americans on Thursday evenings and the store is open throughout the week. Notice the pressure ridges beyond.



Ice Town: The collection of movable buildings on the sea ice that support operations on the ice runway.



Reflections on the Sea Ice make it seem like we are looking out over open water.



Evening Hike

Food

Food – the subject of intense interest, bitter complaining, and, occasionally, great joy. The dining hall (commonly known as the galley) is open 24 hours a day for coffee, kool aid type juice (lovingly referred to as “bug juice”), peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and breakfast cereal. There are 4 set meal times throughout the work day: breakfast, lunch, dinner and midrats (military speak for “midnight rations” – the main midday meal for night shift workers).

Food is served cafeteria-style with a “take what you want, eat what you take” philosophy. Every meal has hot food available and amongst the hot items, there is always one vegetarian option. The galley staff tries their best to make their limited selection of ingredients into interesting and palatable meals. However, meals tend to end up being monochromatic with lots of meat and potatoes. The chicken is the most disappointing - though they dress it up with fancy names, sauces and seasonings, it remains stringy and dry.

The highlights of the meals are the freshly baked breads and desserts. Wednesday is cookie day and Fridays are pizza lunch days. Sunday brunch is a big meal complete with Belgian waffles, eggs made to order, roast, baked brie, and whatever freshies arrived the day before by plane.

Freshies are the most sought-after items from the galley. Since aircraft from Christchurch only arrive 4 days per week and hold space is primarily reserved for science cargo, we don’t have a steady supply of fresh fruits and vegetables. We have green salads, oranges, kiwis, bananas and apples about once or twice per week and on Sundays. Hoarding is common and I must admit that we have our own small stash. There is a greenhouse on the station, but it is only small and can only be considered as an additional source of freshies. However it is a popular place to be, because of all the green and the nice smells (and in winter time for the light).

In between freshie deliveries, fruit comes from a can. When things get grim, jello counts as the fruit of the day.

During lunches, we have a sandwich bar which offers a choice of luncheon meats, cheeses, pickles, onions and, often, lettuce and tomato – all on homemade breads. It’s a popular alternative to some of the more sickly looking warm options. On a few nights a week, we have the option of purchasing burgers and fries at the bar for a change of scenery.

On Saturday evenings, we are permitted to bring wine and beer into the galley to enjoy with our evening meal. This is always a great opportunity to meet new people as they scour the room for a corkscrew.

The gastronomic highlights of the season are Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. The galley staff goes all-out to decorate and bake incredible feasts. Volunteers are recruited from the community to help chop and bake beforehand and to wash dishes during the festivities. The entire community gets an extra day off during each of those weeks and there are extra parties and concerts.

When people need the pleasure of cooking or baking for themselves, they can put in a food request for the ingredients to bake cakes or cookies or to make pizza or other dishes in Hut 10. Hut 10 is a fully furnished stand-alone “home” designed to accommodate visiting dignitaries and important persons (eg. Senators voting on funding for the National Science Foundation) complete with plumbing, heating, carpeting, full kitchen and bedrooms. It is really interesting how you realize how much you miss the comforts and coziness of home when you get inside.

The Community

One of the biggest reasons that people return year after year is not the pay, the location or the work. It’s the community. We have an incredible group of dedicated, adventurous, well-traveled, creative and interesting people working here.

Some statistics about the participants:
Average age: 38 (which makes us youngsters!)
Approximately 34% female
Minorities: 5% (the program is still largely made up of white males, but that is
slowly changing)
Raytheon employees originally from foreign countries: At least 11
Countries represented: New Zealand (lots of Kiwis from the neighboring New Zealand base have married Americans and now work for our base), Australia, the Czech Republic, Ireland, Bulgaria, Croatia, Netherlands (Michiel), Thailand, Poland, Russia, Switzerland and maybe others……
Countries doing science projects, support or transitting through McMurdo: Italy,
France, South Africa, Germany, Canada and probably others.

One of the most talked about statistics this year is the percentage of first-timers (the famous Fingees), a whopping 68%. In the opinion of old-timers and returnees, this is a very bad sign of the discontent that many have with the Program, the bureaucracy and the rules.

Fortunately, many find creative ways to deal with the plethora of new rules and regulations that stem from any small incident. For example, last week, someone came directly from the gym to the cafeteria in his sleeveless shirt and was seen dripping sweat into the lettuce bowl. Very gross, indeed, but what resulted was not a one-to-one counseling with the offending person, but a brand new Dress Code for the galley, which stated that no one is permitted to wear shoes without socks (thus no dress shoes for Thanksgiving or Christmas dinners), no pajamas and no sleeveless shirts. When the Polies (people working at the South Pole Station) saw the PowerPoint presentation that someone put several hours into in order to explain the new policy, they responded with their own poster showing the new Pole galley dress code of “Assless Chaps” on Thursdays.

The creativity is really what keeps many of us returning despite the silly rules and bureaucracy. There is an annual art gallery, craft show and Women’s Soiree (an event showcasing women performers – belly dancers, singers, musicians, etc.) as well as an outdoor music festival on New Year’s Eve known as Ice Stock. There are dozens of musicians playing all varieties of music and some years, there is enough thespian interest to put on a play.

Not all members of the community share in the creative spirit, however, and there are plenty whose imagination go only as far as watching movies and getting drunk in the bar. I hate to generalize, but they tend to be the guys operating and maintaining heavy equipment and the members of the Air National Guard who fly the LC-130 Hercules aircraft. For them (and a surprising number of other members of the community), the biggest frustration is that Food Services didn’t order enough hard alcohol and supplies must be rationed. Wine and beer are sold regularly at the station store, but hard alcohol is sold only on Sundays.