Sugar 'n Spice 'n Everything Ice

2005-11-15T10:43:00.001-08:00

Sooooo. Sooo much to talk about I barely know where to begin.

I learned to drive the 5-ton trucks which we use to transport cargo to the sea ice runway. What a hilarious time. These big flatbed trailer trucks are very long, 10 wheels or more, Im not entirely sure. My favorite is the drive to the runway - which is really the only place we drive the trucks, they are not useful for anything but moving stuff around and thats the only place we move stuff to and from. To get to the runway you must go over the transition, which is where the land and the ice coincide. Because the weather has been warming the transition is softening and it gets rutted out and it is very easy (so I hear) to get vehicles, especially the 5 tons, stuck. The reason this is fun is that to avoid getting stuck you basically drive as fast as you can, through the transition. The first time I did it I thought that the transition started much sooner than it did so I floored it for quite some time before hitting the seriously bumpy areas, I quite possibly got the truck up to 25 miles per hour, which is very fast for these trucks. I was laughing so hard I cried and I forgot to gas the truck once I got back to town. I find it quite amazing that regardless of how much I am getting bounced around I am able to maintain adequate pressure on the gas pedal, as if my foot was a pivot around which the rest of the truck was jostling.

Ah, the sea ice. On Thursday my cargo crew works at the ice runway. Last Thursday was the first week I didn't get sent back to town from the runway to pull cargo, so this is what happened. First thing, I swung my big orange bag, full of "ECW" [Extreme Cold Weather {clothes,boots etc}]onto the couch, and kicked up my feet and lounged, with some serious intent.

When working at the runway you have to show up at DJ (Derelict Junction- an open area semi-equidistant - somewhat - from the bars, much of the housing, the coffee house, the bowling alley and stuff, basically the center of town, approximately) anyway, you have to show up at DJ a halfhour before your shift to catch the shuttle to the runway, then you get there 15 or 20 minutes early and sit around), the point is, I was tired and I wanted to rest. Shortly, Manny, the strip supervisor came in and said, “no lying down in the shack.” I ignored him. I thought, like always, he was giving me a hard time. He wasn’t, along with some other arbitrary rules (seemingly, but surely based in reason and other stuff), lying down is not permitted, at least when Manny is around. My coworkers were amused by me ignoring Manny, mostly because Manny wasn’t amused at all, but didn’t know what to do about it so he just left.

I continued to amuse my coworkers later, when, while waiting for something to happen, I fell into my new habit of kicking snowballs around. I kicked the first snowball to smithereens, and then, on my second kick, my feet went out and I went down. Jay Hay, who claimed to have been about to warn me about the slick nature of the ice and to inform me that kicking snowballs may not be in my best interest laughed at me, for quite some time, actually, he is still laughing, and pointing.

I also unloaded an airplane for the first time. The procedure is very ritualistic. All the vehicles line up; a pickup truck driven by Manny (cause that’s his job), a shuttle van driven by a shuttle driver (cause that’s their job), and a loader or two or three driven by cargo handlers (cause that’s our job). Once we are all lined up and the propellers have stopped turning Manny radios skiway maintenance for permission to approach the aircraft, we get permission, then we all approach the aircraft (gasp!) The shuttles pick up passengers, Manny schmoozes with the air crew (I guess, I don’t really know what he does) and we pull up to the back of the plane where a crew member gives hand signals to pull in, they roll a pallet onto the forks, we pick it up then take it away. It was very exciting for something that is actually quite routine.

By routine, I mean that everything, everywhere (pretty much, at least in our lives, and I mean you too, not just in Antarctica) is shipped somewhere, loaded, unloaded, reloaded and so on. Its just that in Antarctica, the community is so small that you know people who do everything, everyone knows when a plane is coming, if it landed, generally the kind of cargo its carrying (especially if its freshies – fresh fruit and/or vegetables) you can see the runway from town! Everything is simultaneously routine and extraordinary. The rumor mill is out of control!!!!

I guess that was my profound moment for the week, and it wasn’t even so profound, perhaps if I were to expound further it would be, but alas.

In other news. I was going to go climb in the bouldering cave the other day. The cave is in a big jamesway (I think I am using the terminology right, but maybe not) anyway, big building with a round roof, like someone took a vast tube, bisected it and added some walls, a bowling alley (which I still have not been to – perhaps tomorrow) a weightlifting gym, a climbing room, crafts room, ceramics room and and the alleged McMurdo historical society. The term society implies that there are people involved but from what I hear it is just a room with things in it, but I digress (surprised? You shouldn’t be.) I am about to turn into the Cave and hark! music coming from down the hall, I investigated and found a ceramics room, and my friend Jena, who taught me to throw pottery on a wheel. I didn’t keep my pot, because it had one wall that was very thick and we are very short on clay. However I had a very good time seeing how big and strangely shaped I could make it before it collided with physics and collapsed. There is a new kiln, which isn’t even installed yet, 2 electric pottery wheels a bunch of glaze and other stuff. It was great fun.

I am off to the coffee shop now to have a cappuccino and Baileys, before bed, oh and I think I may go to the housing office and discuss with them the fact that my bed should be donated to the McMurdo historical society because it has clearly been here since the beginning of time and would like to retire to somewhere warm, where people only sleep in hammocks.

2005-11-06T05:02:00.001-08:00

I apologize for the recent lack of posting.
I arrived here, at McMurdo October 17th as scheduled.
I have been working 60 hours a week in a physically demanding job, in the cold and believe it or not, got sick....
I am now getting better. I hope.
Anyway. I don't always know what to post about out of the many things that happen so it will be random (and probably inconsistent) the bandwidth here is pretty slow and so sometimes I get tired of waiting for an internet connection and give up and opt for sleep, of which i cannot seem to get enough. Again, sorry.

Yesterday evening I saw the Fata Morgana, a mirage that is created by the difference in temperature between the sea ice and the air directly above it. There was a visual distortion that looked as if there are massive cliffs that don't exist right at the seaice/land border, also part of it looked as if a large mountain in the distance was jutting out over the sky. I got several photos and will post them sometime (when I figure out how to do that.)

One of the great things about working night shift (Im on night shift, now you know) is that I have been witness to some great sunsets/sunrises and while the sun stopped crossing the horizon about a week ago it still goes low enough to create pretty colors in the sky, again I will post pictures, once I get that figured out.

It has been very tiring, but I am starting to get used to it. My typical night (day) starts at 4 pm with me hitting the snooze button on my alarm clock (cell phone) for 40 minutes or so.

Once I drag myself out of bed, run downstairs to use the bathroom, brush my teeth and braid my hair I go back upstairs to get dressed, this is where life gets complicated - I put on long underwear, a wool tank top, a wool longsleeve (to quote myself "I wear the same shirt every day and only wash it once a week, THANK GOD ITS Smartwool" no really) lets see, a windstopper fleece shirt, then my insulated carrhartts overalls (don't forget to grab the radio out of the charger and install it in the carrhartts!!!!) then another fleece and my windbreaker. phew. I put on one hat, shove my balaclava, my windstopper fleece hat and my super awesome possum fur hat (not the American opossum, Australian possums, marsupials introduced into New Zealand as an attempt at establishing a fur industry that are now ravaging the native flora as they have no natural predators there so the Kiwis are killing them and making them into killer hats, scarves and nipple warmers - no really!!http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Possum)
Where was I, a bunch of hats and a pair or two of glove liners get stuffed into my pockets, I lost my neck gaiter which would have gone in my pocket but it only gets down to about 20 degrees (not considering wind chill of course) now that the sun is going down so I'll be ok without it. I sit down on the bed, pull on wool socks then my workboots. I grab my workgloves and clomp my way to the galley, about a block away. (this all takes about 20 minutes, really it is quite significant)

My breakfast is most everyones dinner, so I see if there is anything for dinner that I don't mind eating for breakfast, or I eat cold cereal and fruit, or the bit of breakfast they have out for midrats (Im a midrat, more on that later). 2 glasses of water, 2 glasses of juice and a cup or 2 of coffee depending on what I have time for. I leave the galley at about 5:50, by 6 pm I am to report to building 140 aka the MCC (movement control center, I know it sounds like it would have something to do with the bowels but really, thats where I work).

We are encouraged although not forced to stretch for 15 minutes at the beginning of shift. At 6:15 the team leader comes and tells us what we will be doing for the night, or at least for the next half hour or so, things change a lot and we spend a lot of time undoing or redoing what we or another crew spent a lot of time and energy doing. Not because it wasn't done well, just because what needs to be done, changes, with frightening regularity.

For the night (day) I will do any number of things in any combination or order, depending on what needs to be done, or rather what might need to be done at that time but is subject to change at any time, usually almost immediately upon completion.

Possible work includes:

Bag drag.
People leaving McMurdo and thier luggage are all weighed and stowed in the cargo bay (the bags not the people) to be built into pallets for shipment on the airplane where ever it is going. It is important that we keep our own bags of gear etc separate from the bag drag pile lest it be sent to the South Pole or Christchurch or some field camp out on the West Antarctic Ice Shelf.

Pulling cargo.
A team of 1 to 4 people is given a list of items and 1-4 loaders aka forklifts aka tractors. The list details milvans and specific numbers for the items that we may need to ship to the south pole soon. A milvan is a large steel shipping container, used for shipping and storing cargo. There are many of them lined up in the 'yard' that we store things in. Anyhow, sometimes the stuff is where it is supposed to be, if so it will probably be behind many other items that we don't need so we spend a lot of time "pickleing" items out of the way.

Definition - Pickleing - using the pickle to move cargo

Definition - Pickle - a forklift that used to be made by the armed forces, affectionately nicknamed a pickle, perhaps because it is green??? Anyway pickles are great because you can drive them into milvans and the forks, in addition to going up and down and tilting back and forth (standard movements for forks) also go side to side and rotate (not so standard movements for forks). Pickles are not so great because they are super noisy, very slow and the pickles and thier parts are no longer manufactured so when they break the repairs are by neccesity improvised - the heavy shop mechanics are nothing short of miracle workers. For instance the brakes on the cargo pickle don't really work, ever, even though they get fixed quite frequently, not that it matters the pickle is so slow that if you take your foot off the gas it stops quite readily. That said, the pickle is my favorite loader, probably because it is so old and rackety and it just makes me laugh.

More tasks.
Building pallets.
Not wooden pallets, those are called skids, these pallets are aircraft pallets. Hollow aluminum (I think) flats that are 104" x 86 " with d rings all around the outside. We load cargo onto the pallets to be loaded into the airplanes and sent away. Lately we have been building mostly driftable pallets, I hear other pallet building adventures await us in the future.

Definition - Driftable Pallets - Pallets that meet the weight and durability specification for drifting.

Definition - Drifting - pushing a pallet out the back of a still moving aircraft. This is done when the ground temperature is cold enough to produce a contrail as the planes are not turned off because they may not start again therefore it is too dangerous to unload the aircraft any other way. There is a door for passengers to leave near the front of the planes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:C-141_Starlifter_exhaust.jpg

Soooooo. At midnight, whoo hoo, is midrats, short for Midnight Rations, aka lunch. We are all referred to as midrats and generally say good morning no matter what time of day it is which has led me to the belief that it is Always Morning at McMurdo (Tm). I may even write a song to the effect, I sing little bits of it to Ian as he is getting his breakfast and he mostly just laughs at me with the occasional head shaking.

Then after an hour lunch, back to work, same as above, till six am. Sometimes we send pallets that we have built out to the sea ice runway, if there is a flight or more leaving. Right before we get off work we fuel the machines, park them. plug them in and turn them off.

Perhaps another time I will talk about the machines in greater detail, maybe I can even get some pictures on this blog, but please, be patient, I am working my ass off, and freezing my ass off, sometimes simultaneously even, bye bye ass, it was nice knowing you, and sitting on your warm cushioning. If there is something you would like me to address, let me know.

Its 5 am now, I am going to see if I can get some breakfast/dinner in the galley cause I missed midrats last night and am pretty hungry.

2005-10-15T10:13:00.000-07:00

A brief post until later.
I made it safely to Christchurch. Got issued gobs of cold weather gear in big orange duffel bags. Met a bunch of people across the street from my hotel in a brewery known as the Dux d Lux. Yikes! $17 (NZ) for a pitcher of beer. Not bad beer - but still a bit pricey. However I think it evens out because tips aren't expected - so i guess they work the pay of the employees into the price of food and drink which makes a lot more sense if you ask me. Most of the people I know are going to the south pole (polies) as opposed to myself, I am going to Mc Murdo. Still had a good time rolling around Christchurch - then got Thai Food then went and slept. The sun didn't go down until 9pm or so - I didn't realize, cognitively speaking that we were far enough south for the day to be that long this early in the spring. It makes sense though, now that I pause long enough to think about it.

Going for orientation and safety training this morning. Then I shall tour the gardens. If i get a chance i will post a much more detailed (as opposed to a rambling) description of what is really going on. Not in a global sense of course, I am not quite up to the task.

2005-10-12T18:47:00.000-07:00

I leave tomorrow. I am slightly overwhelmed.

A few concrete figures. My flight leaves DIA at 4:19 - 2.5 hour flight to LAX a 4ish hour layover in LA followed by a 12.5 hour flight to Auckland, NZ another 2 hour layover (including going through customs) then a 2.5 hour flight to Christchurch, NZ. Once in Christchurch I get money, cold weather gear and further information. I spend 2 days in Chch (at the YMCA) before flying (another 5ish hours) to McMurdo Station, Antarctica in a c17 (or so I hear.) Did I say concrete? This is all abstract, completely incomprehensible. I am flying over the OCEAN. the ocean.

I have never been this far from home. I feel a bout of anonymity coming on. It reminds me of hiking through the forest in a thunder-storm. I feel safe, protected by statistics, I will not be struck by lightning, I am but a small speck in a large forest. I am even smaller on a global scale. I am not entirely sure why I find this so comforting, but I do, being a nobody seems like a very safe way to be. Even so I have had dreams about reaching New Zealand and inexplicably having no passport.

I have spent the last month waiting, planning, scheming even, to make this happen. I made it sound easy. Compared to what some go through to get to where I am it was easy. In my mind, doubt and uncertainty have fed on each other, while I, aloof, looking on, pretended everything would turn out the way I wanted it to. It did, that amazes me. I am going to Antarctica. Antarctica. Amazing.

I suppose I should go and send you a link so I amnot just talking to myself here.

2005-10-10T10:01:00.000-07:00

I'll begin at the beginning, wherever that is.
This summer, backpacking along the Colorado Trail, at the Chalk Creek Trailhead to be specific, I met a new friend. Ian, or Skittles as he introduced himself at that time. We became very close and by the time the backpacking was over something else had begun. We thought our days as lovers were numbered, he was leaving the country very soon to work at McMurdo Station, Antarctica. Though I had no plans, it was late in the season for getting work on the ice, the contractor for NSF usually completes thier hiring the previous May or June for the Austral summer, which starts in August or so. The common knowledge/experience is that you usually can't just walk up and say something like, "Hello, My name is Molly, I would really like it if I could go to the Ice this year." Especially not in September, when they are already starting to send people down there. Not usually one to be easily dissuaded from my whims and fancies, this is exactly what I did. For me, it worked.

I suppose that is not exactly the beginning. The story really begins in Nucla, a small town that still clings to a mesa in southwestern Colorado, where the departure of uranium mining some 20 years ago has left the economy in a slump. From here it is a 2 hour drive get anywhere you might recognize (3 hours if my grandfather is driving.) In this stunningly beautiful desert landscape, I spent my time driving four wheelers, shooting my grandfathers guns, swimming in the small reservoir the town built and stocked with fish and attending and subsequently quitting several bible camps, none of whom could satisfactorily answer my many questions. This is the set of my childhood summers, a single block is what passes as downtown; a grocery, a pool hall, hardware store and a pharmacy, the post office and several empty store fronts.
I would occasionally be called upon to run errands to town, I would ride a bike, if there was a functional one on the property or more likely I would walk the mile through the sagebrush, down the dusty deserted road. I would pick up the mail, a stick of butter, some nails or a drill bit. I don't know how the topic of the Antarctic initially came up. In any case the proprieter of the hardware store, Jerry, had worked in Antarctica, and he would show me a few pictures and answer my many questions (unlike the bible camps.) I determined at some point, probably on a very hot, dry, still day, that I too, would someday get a job on the 7th continent. I promptly relegated this to the back of my mind, as in 'someday but not probably today, I will get a job in Antartica.' Today is the day, I suppose. In a letter from my Grandma I recieved the other day I was informed that Jerry is currently working on the ice, I may see him there, another full circle in my life. I am always amused when that happens.