Today is wendsday, biscuit day. And yet at the 10 o'clock break, no biscuits were to be found! Just like that, morale on station suffers a heavy blow. By conditioning the people here to simple joys and routines, life is made easier, except when those joys and routines are interupted by the reality that we are at the ass end of the second longest supply chain on earth (the longest being either South Pole station of one of the remote field camps). Even more crucial to station morale than biscuits however, is Frosty Boy, the soft serve ice cream machine. When Frosty Boy goes down, tempers flare and people get edgy. Thankfully I am not yet dependant on Frosty boy for my fix, so my concern is mostly for my mates on station.
It is far to easy to not write much when pictures are so easy. But of course it is the story and experiences behind these pictures that matters more, otherwise we could all sit at home and watch life on tv. In a way, life here is quite easy, in that meals are prepared for you and ready at predictable times, the place is cleaned for you (by me, actually), transportation is readily available, the gym is open 24 hours a day, classes, movie rentals, and sports leagues are all free. But then again, in order to go outside for more than 5 minutes at a time, you must dress in at least 3 or 4 layers of warm clothes, wear gloves and mittens and goggles and boots and hats and so on and still face the wind that could yield frost bitten cheeks or noses in just a few minutes. So life is at the same time easier and vastly harder here. It is arranged that way on purpose, as a matter of cost effectiveness. The man hours involved if each scientist here had to clean, cook, or otherwise fend for themselves in any way shape or form is not cost effective given the short time frame of the workable Antarctic season. Every waking moment, more or less, is devoted to their research. So that is why we are here, more or less. And to support the Air Force troops stationed here. Gotta be ready in case those penguins decide to ally themselves with the terrorists.
Today was a nice day, beautiful and sunny, if a tad windy. I got to go out and clean the toilets at the little collection of huts we call Ice Town, out by the sea ice runway. The whole place will be skidded over to the permanent ice shelf once the sea ice goes out, and air operations will resume there. From the ice runway you can see Mt. Erebus, clear as ever today, and on the walk back (we had missed our shuttle ride), I saw a seal, just lying on the ice sleeping. One might easily be forgiven for thinking him dead, the way he lay there unmoving in the wind, a thin layer of hoar frost forming on his weather side. A few days ago a seal was out on the runway and firefighters had to chase him away with sticks so the plane could land. The Antarctic Treaty doesn’t apply when a C-17 cargo plane is on final approach.
Right now we have a few C-130's and some smaller planes parked on the runway waiting for the weather to break at the south pole to bring in the summer team. The poor bastards down there have been holed up since at least last February, is not longer, and the relief team can’t get in until it warms up to 55 degrees below zero. So far it hasn’t done that and McMurdo station is steadily accumulating summer Polies that are getting antsy waiting for their flight that is optimistically scheduled day after day and then cancelled each morning. They don’t mind too much staying around here, except they are sleeping as many as 5-7 per room and living out of their carry on bags, checked luggage having been put on pallets a week ago in a fit of optimism. We are ready for them to go, however, as they clog up the chow line, there being over 1000 people on station now.
Can't seem to upload photo's right now, will try again later.
