When All is Said and Done

Problem One
Boxes piled in Waste Water Treatment Plant (WWTP) blocking lower-level thoroughfare.

Solution
Move boxes to storage shed.

Problem Two
Boxes, tools, and equipment secreted behind water basin in Water Plant (WP) contravene WP storage regulations.

Solution
Move boxes, tools, and equipment to newly freed WWTP thoroughfare.

I am part of the solution.

Come 3:30pm, attended a computer training class on the old DOS based CTS (Cargo Tracking System) and learned how to learn what is in transit to McMurdo.

Today followed standard protocol. But yesterday?

Yesterday I was fortunate enough to participate in what the Raytheon Corporate Overlord terms a 'boondoggle.' I was given the opportunity to attend a Sea Ice Training class, though I had no reason to be there. Unless I am the last living soul on McMurdo, I won't be on sea ice. I nonetheless got to spend the day on McMurdo Sound, past Castle Rock near a place called Hutts Point.

It started in a Haggland—two snowcats coupled together, the front one towing the rear. Seven of us, including the guide, drove out of town to Scott Base. At Scott Base we primed snowmobiles, loaded them up, filled them with gas, then drove off with a strong wind at our tail, thick fog and snow. We came in view of Hutts Point within ten minutes. Over the sea ice were Turtle Island, Big and Little Razorback, a few other rocks breaking through the ice. Most impressive was the Erebus Glacier Tongue. Off of the volcano flows a glacier, and where this glacier protrudes from land into the water it is called a tongue, rising perhaps fifty to a hundred feet above the surface, cragged, broken, blue and white, sheer and dangerous-looking walls. We dismounted the snowmobiles alongside the tongue and walked to a melt pool where three seal pups played in the water. The mother lay to the side. Every now and then she raised her flipper. The pups exhaled loudly through their noses. The storm persisted with strong winds and the far side of McMurdo Sound, the continent proper, showed rocky ten miles distant.

We drove off again, looking for a pathway to Turtle Island to hike up top. So late in the season, the pressure ridges were no longer passable. Melt pools and widening cracks blocked access. We stood among perhaps seventy seals. And then Keith, a cook in the kitchen, spotted a penguin far off beyond all the seals. He was hardly visible through the blowing snow. He squawked over and over, eying us, then he waddled our direction. He jumped and paddled on his belly. He swam across a rift in the ice. He climbed up on our side and continued waddling. It was an Emperor Penguin, and he came within about forty feet, stood there curious, squawking still and looking over the group. We spent a long time watching him watch us. When we finally walked off, he followed, and then when he was tired of following us he stopped and watched us get set on the snowmobiles; he turned ninety degrees and wandered off alone past seals toward water. He was turning about in small circles when we moved off.

We drove in train toward land, returning to McMurdo Station. I was a passenger with the guide, sitting on the back of the bench seat. We came across a depression in the sea ice that marked the edge of a perennial and infamous crack. The guide stopped the train of snowmobiles and walked ahead twenty feet until his foot punched through the snow. He jumped back and his windpants glistened. He waved us in, pointed to the crack: open water about two feet down. We were going to test the sea ice for safe crossing. This involves drilling and measuring. If the ice is thicker than 75 centimeters, then light vehicle traffic is safe. If it is not thicker than 75cm, then the section of thin ice must not be wider than one-third the vehicle track length. Snowmobiles are six feet long, so two feet is the maximum allowed width of thin ice patches. We took measurements. Our guide handed me a shovel and asked I shovel a trough ahead of the drilling team, save time. As I walked out my foot also punched a hole in the snow and I rolled forward onto sea ice, my windpants glistening, my heart loud and fast. The guide looked up and walked over. “I often start with step seven and forget one through six,” he said. That took care of that.

We found a navigable route, touched back on land and hauled back to camp, refueled the snowmobiles, reloaded the Haggland, returned to McMurdo. It seems to me that yesterday validated the eight weeks I'm contracted down here—whatever comes next, that's okay.

It is snowing now, and it is 11pm in the cafeteria, and I can't find it in myself to resist a bowl of Special K cereal. Bon appetit.