A Year On Ice

We finally made it.   We are scheduled to depart Antarctica tomorrow. For Jamie, it will have been over one year and just under one for me.   It's been incredible.  So incredible that we have signed up to do another winter.  Yes, you heard it right. We are coming back in four months to spend another season under the dark yet glittering skies of Antarctica.   We'll both keep our same positions-Jamie as the Galley Admin and I'll again be an Equipment Operator with Best Recycling.  We were both thrilled to get our contracts again and we can't wait to come back. It makes leaving a bit easier.

In my last post I talked about how the sun was just starting to give us a lighter shade of dark blue.   No longer. We are in full on bright mode now. I woke up last night at 2:30am because I had forgotten to pull the shade and it was bright as day out there.   Now that the sun is really and truly up, I am happy to be seeing it and am feeling more centered.  I like that it's bright out and I can see the mountains and recognize people from a distance.    But I still miss the coziness of the darkness and the night sky.  I had a brilliant dream about the stars the other night-there was so much twinkling and glittering!

With the sun coming back we got two weeks of nacreous clouds.   Nacreous clouds can only be seen when the sun is between 1 and 6 degrees below the horizon and only at the poles.   The are beautiful.  The are, unfortunately, a cause of and contribute to the hole in the ozone but they are beautiful.  "Oil Streaks in the Sky" is the way on friend described them. They were a beautiful treat to welcome the sun back.

The move into Summer was a bit more intense than I had expected it to be.   There are always stories about grumpy "winterovers" hating when new people come in and I was convinced that I wouldn't be one of those people- I like people! I get a lot of energy from people!   Oh but I was wrong.   The influx has two main phases. The first in  "Winfly" (short for "winterflight" it's the first flight after winter).   Winfly doubled our population in two days.   While it's true I was happy to see all the new faces I forgot that it also meant that I would lose the cosy community of Winter where I knew all 141 people.  All of a sudden there were 160 new faces on station and I hardly knew them. Also, because i do like people, I found myself drained of energy because I was trying to figure out who everyone was and be welcoming...in short, I found myself hiding in corners, eating in my room and only sitting with faces I knew from winter.  While I don't think I was particularly mean-I was not happy.

And then summer started.  Our station population jumped to 600 in a week.   I felt manic AND panicked.  Trying to get a meal in the galley became an exercise is patience and crowd control.  I thought I was managing it well until a friend found me standing by the salad line and came over to check-in on me because I looked so lost and overwhelmed.  A lot of people all at once!

On the bright side, there are a lot of great things happening with all the new people on station.   We had scientists come in for Winfly this year so there's been science happening since August. The dance crew has already put together and performed a dance performance,  departments are filling in and getting lots of work done and all the trails are back open for summer recreation.    And while the sun is up 24 hours a day now it  still dips a bit and we are getting stunning colors on the mountains.

I'm looking forward to another Winter but right now we are both really looking forward to Vacation!  We'll go to Vanuatu for 10 days, India for a month, Mexico for 2 weeks and then home for December 16th!  Home for the holidays!  It's gonna be great!

Nacreous Clouds

Sea Ice training.  We went out on the ice and learned how to look at a crack and decide if it was safe enough to cross with a vehicle. it invovled lots of shoveling, drilling and a little math.  It was a cold but enjoyable way to spend an afternoon. 

Bad Weather in Antarctica

Practically halfway through July.  Time is flying by.  At 1pm the sky is hinting at a light blue these days.  I was expecting to be thrilled that the sun is coming back but instead I'm a bit apprehensive.  The darkness has a nice mellow quality.  I don't feel bad just relaxing in my room or having quiet time.  It's OK if I don't want to go hiking or if I don't take a lunchtime walk for exercise.  It's dark and cold out!  You SHOULD stay in.  However, now that the sun is coming back,  it's almost like I can sense the coming frenzy.  In August our population with double and we'll have normal days and nights.  I am looking forward to it. Don't get me wrong but it feels like the end of a nap.    You know you'll be refreshed when you get up, but you'd just love it go on a little while longer.

I was worried our winter would pass us by without a good storm but we were given a doozy of one last Thursday.  We categorize our weather into three "conditions". Normal daily operations is Condition Three.  This is nice weather and we have no restrictions.  The parameters for Con 3 are: winds less than 48 knots,  visibility greater than or equal to ¼ mile, and Wind chill temperature warmer than -75°F.    Condition two comes with restrictions to recreational travel but work as normal continues about town:  Winds 48 to 55 knots sustained for one minute or  Visibility less than ¼ mile, but greater than or equal to 100 feet sustained for one minute, or  Wind chill -75°F to -100°F sustained for one minute.   It's not uncommon to have Condition two weather.  It's cold and windy but workable.  Condition One is rare.  This was the first time I'd experienced it here.  Condition One means you cannot leave whatever building you are in without a Search and Rescue escort.  If you are in the dorms, they set up rope lines between the dorms and the dining hall  so that you can eat but you have to travel in groups and check out with the firehouse when you leave and then arrive at the next building.   In this recent storm, it got so bad at one point that they cancelled ropeline travel between buildings as well.  Condition one parameters are: Winds greater than 55 knots sustained for one minute or Visibility less than 100 feet sustained for one minute or Wind chill greater than -100°F sustained for one minute.

The morning started out with bad weather.  We tried to drive up to work but couldn't make it.  At one point we tried to follow someone walking but once they got 15 feet in front of us they would disappear.   Finally we had to roll down both front windows and just drive hollering directions between driver and passenger.  We stopped at the first building we came to and walked the rest of the way.  About 15 minutes after we got to work, the operations manager called us to warn us that they would be changing the condition and we should head down the hill now.   It was 8:30am.   Travis and I struck out to get down the hill together.   Instantly, we were almost blown over and couldn't see any landmarks or buildings.  Instead,  we walked toward the hazy streetlight in the direction of town.  When we got there, it was not where i expected to be and only being able to see 20 feet in any direction, I couldn't orient myself. Thankfully Travis knew where we were and got us back on track.   We stopped in at the galley, gathered snacks and provisions and then went to our rooms to wait out the storm.  The weather continued to get worse throughout the day so we had a snow day!  It was great fun.  People came and hung out in our room, we made arts and crafts,  listened to music and generally just hung around.

While we had a great relaxing day, many other people got called out to deal with all the issues the arise from a Condition one storm.  One of the main issues is temperature moderation. The science building, IT building and NASA equipment is all very sensitive to temperature and with the winds blowing so hard and fast, it's hard to moderate temperature which meant that alarms were going off in all of those buildings all day and people had to be traveling back and forth trying to keep McMurdo systems up and running.  The galley, of course, has to go to and stay at work during Condition One, the Search and Rescue team is out and about escorting people to and from buildings with their GPS systems and fire dispatch becomes a hotbed of activity as people are calling in and out to walk between buildings, report alarms or  request assistance.

The next day is when the fun of clean-up happens.  Fleet Operations is the crew with all the big equipment to get out and plow town out.  The were in their trucks ready to start working at 7:30 on the dot.   When we walked up to our barn, we had a HUGE snowdrift in front of our barn doors. The smallest part of the drift was up to my hips and it started at the door and then came out about 25 feet.  Thankfully, because we have buckets for our loaders, fleet ops came up to help us get out so we could get to work helping to dig out town.   The winds were so intense that in some places there was no snow on the roads but in others it would be 5 feet deep.  Trucks were buried in,  cardboard had blown all over town,  many of our big shipping containers had been knocked around, off stacks or blown down the road, the supply crew had to take a full assessment of all their outside storage and, of course, everyone who was able was out shoveling.   While my co-workers were helping to plow, I had to cruise around town to hunt down all our lost or tipped trash bins and set everything back in order.  By the end of the day, remarkably, town was pretty much back in shape.  There's still a few things that need to happen, but mostly, it looks good.  This is very important because we have a flight coming in this week. The same crew that puts town in order also has to get the runway up and running.  With the condition one that we had, it means there job will be all the more difficult.   They will have to plow and groom the 14 miles of road that leads out to the runway and then smooth and groom the runway to the specific requirements of the AirForce.  Not only that, but out on the iceshelf, the wind really whips through so many of our building there are flipped over, moved and I've heard rumor that one is even lost.

For all that, it was really insightful to be in Antarctica during a Condition One.  It was a good reminder that this is a wild place.

After the walk back to town through the nasty weather,  I went to take my pants off but the zippers were clogged with snow and ice. That was from less than 10 minutes walking outside.  Snow gets everywhere.  It is insidious! 

Our friend Dan standing outside our dorm door during the storm. 

A short progession of the snow accumulation inside one of our windows. 

A nice fine cover. 

Could make a snowball out of all that. 

This is our bedroom window.  I keep that wool blanket over the bottom half to keep out light and cold so that we can look at the stars while in bed.   This window also got a little snowy.

The light is about 5 carlengths away. There's a whole building there.

This is just one of 5 milvans that got blown around during the storm. One blew all the way down the road. 

This is the bathroom out at the airfield.   Thankfully all the good inside would have been frozen. 

MidWinter in Antarctica

June 21, 12:58pm.  We picked this time because it was solar noon for us in Antarctica.

The cross at the top of our hike with the southern cross constellation  in the night sky next to it.  In case you don't know the southern cross, it's the ver bright stars that look like a kite with five stars. 

To kick off the Solstice I got up and ran the MidWinter Mile race.  Just one mile but with windchill (and it was windy) it was -56 so that mile was a big accomplishment.  I have a blue ribbon but that's becuase she crossed out the 1st and wrote 4th on it for me. (fourth out of my age category...of which there were four of us). 

Out center pieces for midwinter.  We collected old Antarctica photos and old lookin things to decorated. Simple and nice. 

To make the galley look special, we set all the tables, hung flags, christmas tree lights, put up tents, had live music and an open bar.  Good times. 

This project came out really cool. Many of us got a "Tom Crean" re-creation photo.  Tom Crean was on three major Antarctica expeditions. We got our photos taken and then wrote up a little bio on how we ended up in Antarctica. 

The galley, as usual, made incredible food and desserts.  These were our appetizers.  Lavender tea cakes,  spinach and cheese bowls, candycane beets and cream cheese, duck pate, edamame puree with fried nori and wasabi, and two others i can't remember right now. 

That isn't even all of the desserts. It continues on. This is just the chocolate section and you can't even see the chocolate fountain. jeremy (our baker) made a dessert for each nation was wintering.  With all that and then including the choclates, we had 32 different dessert options. 

Here's some more in no particular order: Flan, blood orange jellies, apple cider jellies, pavlova, peanut butter fudge, panna cotta, peanut butter cups, candied pears covered in chocolate, almond joys, orange chocolate, midn chocolate, chocolate coverd cherries, bonbons of various flavors.  Some of my other favorites included the German cheesecake, russian tea cakes,  lemingtons and  Tres Leches cake. and that's not even everything. 

Working in the kitchen, jamie had to cook and then serve during the meal. here he is making fresh tossed cesear salad for everyone. 

On of the things I love about Antarctica is that we love a good photo booth. This one was made by my Co-worker Travis. It's a recreation of Scotts hut.  This is the Wastie Crew this winter.  Myself, Travis and Rob. 

There are LOTS of violent(ish) photos.  Debbie and Julie kind of ruin it with their smiles and laughter.

Just to keep the night going, Jamie and I then bartended the after party at the Gallaghers.  Rebranded and redecorated as an ice cave and called Club Krystal.  

McMurdo Winter C17 June Flight

          The first official "winter flight" came and left last week.  It was a big event.  It's remarkable for any plane to arrive on it's scheduled day so for a plane to be only 3 hours late on it's inaugural winter flight is pretty remarkable.

For the flight to land, we turn out all the lights on the runway because they use night vision to land the plane and the lighting will ruin their ability to see.  To help them use the night vision more effectively, we put out the incredibly reflective cones all up and down the runway. INCREDIBLY reflective. According to the pilot, they could see the cones 250 miles out.  I was lucky and got to go out to help with them.  It was kinda fun to be out there during all this prep for the plane and to see who all is involved.   The Fleet Operations guys had been out there daily for 6 days prior and then constantly for 30 hours prior to the flight. They groom the runway so that a plane can land on it and considering that the runway had been unused for 6 weeks, they had quite a task cut out for them. This was not made any easier by the bad weather and wind bringing in snow drifts and uneven ground.   They were all exhausted. Also, in the days leading up to the flight, there's around 4 mechanics that just hang out incase a vehicle breaks down.  To add to the excitement on the Pegasus Runway, a seal had made it's way onto the runway.  The firefighters had to use their expert skills at Wildlife Management to move it.  Unfortunately, they aren't allowed to touch the seal, so "expert skills"  amounted to them waving their arms and yelling "shoo" from about 3 feet away.  The seal could have cared less.   It was kind of hilarious and kind of sad because it's quite possible the seal was out there in the first place because it was sick and dying.  As a side note, I often think about how if the seals talk to each other, I imagine they experience us as a kind of "alien adduction". Especially if it's scientists that are coming upon them they get treated to spinal taps, anal probes, flying vehicles (aka helicopter or airplanes) all that craziness.   Not so far off from our "alien" stories.  OK back to the flight. 

For loading and unloading the plane, the supply crew gets brought out to become the "cargo" crew to help get all the pallets of food, equipment and luggage off the plane.   The fuelies are standing by in case the plane needs fuel (unlikely for a C17) and then people like me get brought out to do the little tasks and fill in where needed.  The plane lands, does not shutdown, unloads and reloads and then heads off again-all in less than an hour.  It's a pretty remarkable system. 

In other news, May is over and done!  June is here.  We are moving so quickly through this season.  May brought with it the end of "Civil Twilight" so we are in darkness all day long.   I've included a picture of May 1st and then May 31st (both taken at 1pm).    I'm surprised at how easily I've transitioned into living in constant darkness. I thought it would be much more difficult.  I took me quite some time to get comfortable with constant daylight so I expected a similar thing going in the other direction but it hasn't been so bad.  My guess is it's because I was here for the transition.  It's not like I stepped off the plane and it is was dark constantly and I had to adjust immediately. Experiencing the change has been very helpful.   It was a mildly difficult sleeping when I could still see lighter colors in the sky. I think my body was waiting for the sun to come up each day because the sky would be somewhat light in the morning but then when it never did it just meant I was tired all day long and then couldn't sleep at night.   When that was happening it felt like it took forever to wake up.  As it is, it still feels like I'm not fully awake until around 10am, but I can sense that this is slowly lifting and I'm settling in as there is less variety to the light.   I've also made some dedicated life choices and I think those have helped stabilize my mood and transition.  I do a "bootcamp" class twice a week and try to walk/run two other times.  I've also been drinking a lot less and trying to sleep 8 hours every night. Who knew doing healthy for your body would lead to healthy things for your mind!  Gosh!  Can't believe I'd never tried it before! 

Enjoy the pictures.  I started us off  with pictures from the Top Gun party to show off my awesome makeup and crimped hair.  

The supply department put on a Top Gun Themed party and as I didn't have flight suit, we just went for a general 80s look.  

Aren't we adorable? The party itself was incredibly fun. They decorated the cargo bay with Cargo netting and airplane props,  we had a beanbag toss (called Corn Hole in the Midwest-who knew!) and they had a Tom Cruise Scientology Center.  The Scientology center was great because the Scientologists had, earlier, in the season sent us a LOT of literature on Scientology, bizarre, but we finally found a use for it.  

On that C17 flight we got mountains of mail!  More mail for 142 people in June than we got for over 700 people in December for Christmas.  The flight came in on Wednesday. The mail lady and 12 volunteers started sorting Thursday Morning at 9am so that everyone could get their mail by Thursday afternoon. What service!  And thank heavens too as we had planned Christmas for the Saturday following the flight.   Santa comes in JUNE! 

Not only did we get mail on that flight but we got fresh vegetables! 3700 lbs of it!  Nothing better than fresh lettuce in Antarctica!  And Coconuts and Papaya!  And Feijoa!  What's a Feijoa you ask? It's a fruit that looks a bit like a kiwi but is bright green and has a sweet/tart flavor. As I was eating this Feijoa (in Antarctica),   I was marveling at how rare it is to try a truly new food.  I can't remember the last time I've had something that I had never had before.   It was a delight. 

And here's the plane! Landing in the dark.  Four people were scheduled to leave on that plane however by the time the plane left, it has 8 people on it.  It brought us 7 in so our winter population is down to 141. 

May 1st 13:00

May 31st 13:00.  Admittedly, it's not this ridiculously dark when I'm taking this photo.  My sad camera has begun to die and doesn't do a great job anymore.   we have gotten a new one.  HOWEVER,  my point is clear. the sky is black and at 1 pm it's nighttime outside. 

Science Fairs, Open Mic Nights and Pulp Fiction Live Reads in Antarctica?

Science Fairs, Open Mic Nights and Pulp Fiction live reads. And you thought Antarctica was boring in the winter! And all this within the span of 2 weeks.   

The fun started with our Open Mic Night.  We've been having these pretty consistently once a month.  We have some excellent musicians here that get up and perform for us all.   We had a five person jazz and blues band, an excellent banjo/guitar duo with original music,  a dueling guitars performance and a dance routine.   For a community of just barely 140, that's pretty impressive.  We had some stellar, almost professional performers and then you had people like me who just enjoy an audience. This most recent one I was requested to play Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots by the Flaming Lips so I obliged.   I also sang back-up for my friend Katie who dedicated her favorite song to her mom.    The woman who's been organizing the event is leaving soon. I'm hoping someone else will take up the charge because I'd like to avoid getting my hands into one more project. 

 Open Mic Night was followed up two days later with a Science Fair! I find it hilarious that we were hosting a science fair at a science station when all but one scientist have left.  On the other hand, I think our fair was much more entertaining than if we had real science to look at.  (not to insult any of our researchers in McMurdo's First Annual Winter Science Fair).  I thought it was funny and insightful that of the 10 or so experiments we had, only two of them weren't focusing directly on McMurdo or the McMurdo community.  With such an insular community,  we are often and mostly focused inward.  That in and of itself is an interesting thing to think about and look at.  But, let's get down to what our participants put forth as their all important research.  

 My question was about our Radio Station: Ice Radio 104.5.  When listening to Ice Radio, I felt that the vast majority of the songs that got played (when the station was on Autoplay) were Country or Christmas-sometimes both.  My question therefore was: does Ice Radio play mostly Country and Christmas? My hypothesis was "yes, yes it does."  The result, however, was no.  Unfortunately, I couldn't answer part of my question.  I couldn't find information for Christmas as it's not listed as it's own category.  I did discover that while the station is not playing mostly country, it is playing a lot of it-Country is played 21% of the time.   I had a lot of fun putting that together.  Other experiments were "what's the chance of a guy finding an eligible woman?' That one was slim as there are only 7 available women on station right now.  Crazy, huh?  There were a few about the galley: How many average calories is a meal, how many ounces does each bowl hold, which mug keeps your coffee warm the longest?  One of my favorites was a survey of travels to see how well traveled we are as a group. The average number of countries people here have been to is 20 and the average number of states is 39.  Pretty good I think. 

The best part?  We made Sorbet from liquid nitrogen.  Liquid Nitrogen is a byproduct of our water treatment plant.  (I'll tour that and get you the full story in the future).  What a great use of it, huh? Can't let it go to waste. 

The following week we had a Pulp Fiction live read.  Essentially, we read the script of Pulp Fiction in front of an audience.  This was way more fun than I expected it to be.  We had a few rehearsals and honestly, I was worried it was going to be super boring.   When we did the full read though-it took more than three hours! Isn't that insane?   But then, when it was finally time to perform, it was so good.  Having an audience made it much more entertaining and people really hammed it up making it much even more engaging.   My friend watching said it was just the right amount of camp and seriousness. She said it was a great evening of "good theater".  I'll give her a little leeway with her "good theater" comment but it was pretty interesting.   If you remember Pulp Fiction at all, Jamie and I were "Pumpkin and Honey Bunny" the couple that hold up the restaurant at the beginning and end of the movie.    I think we did pretty well.  

It'd be great if I had photos of those fun things I was just mentioning, but well. I don't really. Sorry about that. I'm working on it.  For now, just enjoy these fun photos!  

Add caption

OK.  So you've had to see lots of pictures of me driving loaders.   Well...there you go.  If you look closely in this photo, you can see the windmills poking up over the hill. 

This happens once a week. Jamie puts in a food order and then it all gets delivered on Thursday.  The people pulling the food are called "food monkeys' because if they have to get something that is up higher they have to, literally, climb up those boxes to get the requested items.   Often, what we get served in the galley is restricted by what is accessible in the freezer.  After the vessel comes in summer, this freezer is so full that we can only access things on the outside of the "box" of frozen food that gets built, filling the center of the freezer. 

With such a small community, the medical staff tries to make sure that as many people as possible are trained to help assist in an MCI, a Mass Casualty Incident or any emergency that would overwhelm our two medical professionals.  I've been trained to use the X-ray machine but other people are trained in labs, pharmacy, general triage, recording or just basic assistance.  They have held a few training sessions since then where they'll bring in "patients" and we'll have to respond as if it's a true situation.  Very interesting and I'm enjoying learning new skills. 

The last Sunset at McMurdo

Hello! 

Guess what we had last week at 1:45pm on April 24th! The last sunset!   Now, don't be thinking that we are wandering around in utter darkness just yet.  In fact, it's still quite bright for a few hours in the afternoon.  I've included a picture I took at 1pm on the 24th, still plenty of light.   

March and April have been fun months to be living through.  For March we had almost normal sunlight.  The sun would set around bedtime and rise as we were getting up.  It was novel.  The first time I didn't have to close my shades at bedtime was very exciting and all the summer people were marveling about it at breakfast for a few day.  After that novelty wore off,  we got the April sunset. Pretty much constant sunrise/sunset colors. The mountains and sky were a stunning pink and red all day long for weeks.   It was a delight.  One of those days, I looked over toward Erebus and saw the steam coming out of the top, but with the pink sky, the steam was glowing red. Spectacular. 

I'm curious to see how I'll settle into the darkness. As it is,  I can still feel myself waiting each day for it to get brighter and experience a minor sense of relief when I walk out of a building and it's a bit lighter out.  I wonder if this isn't partly because the sky is still in the process of  lightening and so I expect it to get bright. Perhaps I won't feel that expectation when we are total dark mode.   It will be an interesting experiment.   I have a friend her that's been tracking all the data for sunrises and sunsets.  She's still putting information together so will have some trends to share with us in the future, but for now I've learned some interesting facts about twilight. 

There are three different types of twilight: Civil, Nautical and Astronomical.  Nautical is named this way because it's the twilight when seafarers can see the stars enough to navigate. Astronomical Twilight is when it's dark enough for astronomers to stargaze.  In any day, you will go through all three of those twilights.  Start at night, move into astronomical, next is nautical, then civil and then day. 

Currently, with the sun just setting, we are in Civil Twilight for most of the day. The sun in only about 6° below the horizon.  On May 11th we'll move into Nautical twilight with the sun 12° below the horizon.  We'll have Nautical twilight at some point during the day until the next sunrise.   We'll start with about 6 hours a day and then by June it will drop down to 3.  So there is no point during this winter when we will have full "night" for 24 hours. Isn't it all so interesting?!

And Auroras!  There have been some sightings but I've yet to see any.  I'm really excited for an Aurora viewing. 

Well folks,  I hope everything is well with you wherever in the world you might be.  Enjoy the pictures! 

This is my 1pm photo on the day of the sunset.    I've been taking one every day (almost) at this time and I'm hoping to put them all together.  We'll see. 

A storage space at Lake Hoare in the Dry Valleys with the Canada Glacier in the background. That glacier is their source of water.  They collect (you're going to love this) "Glacier Berries" and melt them down. Glacier berries are parts of the glacier that have calved off. 

A super secret silent dance party on New Years' eve.  We met up at 11:30pm,  brought our own music and headphones and danced around to our own beats to ring in the new year. It was incredibly fun.

The inside of an empty LC-130. 

I like the story of this Helo pad with it's tiny H.  When the painters were sent out there, the Head Pilot told them to paint something fun on it. The painters painted a butterfly. You can kind of see the outline of it still.  Someone, however, didn't like that and made them go back out and repaint it.  What a bummer.  On the bright side, because of this project, I was allowed to ride out in the extra seat on the helicopter and got a little fly over in the Dry Valleys. 

The moon and Antarctica. 

It snowed in my pickle (the name of the tractor). The pickles are very old vehicles from the military and there is no real seal on the doors so the wind blows the snow right inside. 

SCIENCE!  The Research Assistant, Liz, touring us through the Arrival Heights building where she monitors a variety of science experiments. 

This is the boxes that the science equipment from Japan comes in. HOW ADORABLE! 

All the science equipment, all lit up.