A few weeks back, I received a synopsis of the cruise which I will be departing on. The cruise is (was) putting in some Antarctic field camps on the way to Palmer Station there is a day or two built into the schedule to allow for weather delays which are common (ya think?). With the field camps put in the last major objective of the cruise is to exchange some passengers. The ship arrived this afternoon, but high winds with gusts near gale force prevented the ship from tying up to the pier. If it is able to tie up tomorrow, things will still look good for a departure on the 22nd. There is, however, a fairly good chance that we’ll have to make a detour to a godawful hunk of rock about 40 miles from here. There is some sort of whiz-bang sciencey type GPS instrument parked on that rock that hasn’t been working right and an attempt will likely be made to get it back to working order.

Here’s a map of the cruise route

The malfunctioning instrument is a fairly big deal and lots of people are interested in having it fixed, but the rock that it is on is woefully inaccessible in all but the calmest of seas and winds. Add a generous helping of sea ice to the mix and this part of the cruise becomes a huge wild card. Nonetheless, I have gambled a bit and gone ahead and booked some plane tickets. I am now free to obsess over things that are even further in my future and represent greater unknowns. You can track the ship here or, sometimes that one doesn’t work and here is another or…if you’re reading this article on my site, as opposed to some rss feed/facebook/twitter thing…there is a “Where’s Will” link on that slick new drop down menu immediately under the header on this page. Through the magic of my superior php coding skills, the link should automatically change based on the dates when I THINK I’ll be on the boat and will then revert back to my old iPhone tracking thingamajiggy at the end of the cruise so that you can follow my movement through South America

As I was trying to get more in touch with why I feel this way, I was reminded of the story of the Red Box. If you’re in the U.S. you’ve likely seen, or even used one of these at the supermarket or fast food establishment. It’s called “Red Box” and it’s a little automated video rental kiosk. The concept is really pretty neat – you swipe a credit card, rent a new release movie for…I dunno, I think $1/day. You can return the DVD to any Red Box anywhere! Yep, seems pretty neat. And cheap! So, the last time I was back in the U.S. I rented a movie from one of these things. All went well with the rental but when I tried to return it, the machine was on the fritz….stuck in some sort of infinite computer loop or something. I was actually standing in line behind another person for quite some time. I just figured the guy was a luddite and couldn’t figure out the overly complex task of inserting an object in a slot, but alas, it wasn’t him, it was the stupid machine – just sitting there, not doing anything. He finally gave up and when I stepped up to the machine it was displaying some sort of error message. I found the manager of the fast food establishment and asked for help. My rudimentary Espanol skills tell me that he was trying to inform me that it wasn’t his problem – the machine didn’t belong to the restaurant and that in order for my problem to be resolved I would be required to speak to some cretin in Bangladesh or Tallahassee. I called, I was put through a series of voice prompts that resulted in yet another infinite loop. No matter what I said I was always met with a response of “oh, so you’d like to become a member” or “did you say you’d like to make a payment?”. Yes, seriously. This went on for what seemed like forever. Finally, through some sort of incomprehensible electronic sorcery, my call was routed to a never-ending queue to speak with a real live human being. The music that was looped in between assurances that my call “is very important” caused my ears such pain that I prayed that Lawrence Welk’s orchestra would appear and those goofy tap dancers from his show would ram the heels of their stupid little tap shoes so deep into my ears that I would be relieved of hearing such atrocities for eternity. No such luck, only more nerve-racking music that Satan himself must have orchestrated in a bid to drive normal people into homicidal rages.

After being on hold for something like 6,546 days, I was finally connected to a real human who, surprisingly, happened to be extraordinarily congenial and was able to tell me that their systems had crashed or something and that I would have to wait to return my DVD and that the system would automagically know that I wasn’t able to return it on time and, furthermore, I wouldn’t be charged for the “extra” day. I was quite relieved by this news but at the same time my level of annoyance had gotten really out of hand. Even if I figured that my time was worth minimum wage, I could have just purchased the DVD and been better off economically than to have spent the time I spent trying to turn the stupid thing back in…and that’s only counting the time at the kiosk and on the phone and no time driving back and forth from the stupid thing.

Now, to most people dealing with this type of thing on a daily basis an experience like this surely seems quotidian but to me who has become accustomed to problem resolution being done in a very personal manner and quite timely…well, this experience became another huge frustration and an unbearable vexation and representative of everything I seem to come to Antarctica to avoid. Seriously, my biggest frustration here is when the coffee runs out and as amped up as I get about things like that, the resolution is so completely simple and easily managed that I feel fortunate to not have to deal with impersonal solutions to problems.

Enjoy your Red Box DVD kiosk, your ATMs, your self-checkout, drive-through banking and dining where something ALWAYS goes amiss. Bask in the glory of 64 channels of shit – several of which seem to have some screaming jack ass purporting to be reporting the news. Enjoy all of those modern “conveniences”. I think I’m going to go to some unknown beach that barely has electricity and where “agua caliente” as an amenity isn’t something you can take for granted and is a selling point at some (but not all) lodging. I’m going to the beach to live the “sandal life”.

Photo Credit: Sean Bonnette

It’s been a great season and I’ll be sorry to see most of these people leave next week.  I’ll be even sorrier that I’m not among them.  I’ll be staying on here until about this time next month at which time I’m departing for…well, I really don’t know yet, perhaps Ecuador and the Galapagos and I’ll figure it out from there.

There’s something analogous between the Spam-filled Moonpie and the marketing campaign for “Whiteout,” an Antarctica-set thriller whose commercials and trailers suggested an icebound horror film.

Here I am…polluting the internet with more “Whiteout” rhetoric.

One of the things that caught my attention as I have been scanning Antarctic headlines was this story about Qantas offering sightseeing flights over Antarctica:

Qantas A380 Selected For Sightseeing Flights To Antarctica

Fri, 18 Sep ‘09
Passengers Will Spend 4 Hours Over The Antarctic Ice

A Qantas Airbus A380 super jumbo will undertake a unique sightseeing flight to Antarctica – the first commercial flight by an A380 over the south polar region, and the only aircraft permitted to do so on New Year’s Eve.

The flight, organized by Melbourne-based Antarctica Sightseeing Flights, a division of Australian travel company Croydon Travel, will originate in Sydney and fly via Melbourne to reach Antarctica. Passengers will be over the “ice” at midnight and be the first in the world to see the light of the new year.

The chartered A380 will fly figure-eight patterns above the breathtaking polar terrain for up to four hours before heading back to Melbourne and Sydney.

Two other Antarctic flights are also planned for the southern summer – a second A380 service direct from Sydney on 24 January and a Boeing 747-400 from Melbourne on Valentine’s Day, 14 February. All flights are operated by senior Qantas pilots, with the captain in command having previously operated Antarctica sightseeing flights[keep the bold part in mind - it's relevant to something later in my article].

It sounds a bit silly to me. Sightseeing flights in a small airplane where every seat is a window seat makes a bit more sense, but this is just ridiculous. I suppose if you’re someone who just has to see Antarctica, this is a good way to do it relatively cheap and a turnaround flight probably isn’t going to cause one to succumb to polar madness. Regardless of my opinion the sightseeing flights probably have quite the appeal to some people. The flights might even appear banal until you consider what happened on the last sightseeing flight over Antarctica. In November 1979 flight 901 departed Auckland, NZ on a sightseeing flight of Antarctica with 237 passengers and 20 crew members. The captain and co-pilot had not flown the Antarctic flight before, but the flight was considered to be straightforward and they were both experienced pilots. All 257 people on board died when the plane crashed into Mt. Erebus. The information on the flight recorder tapes showed there had been no emergency in the cockpit of the aircraft. Attention was then focussed on the possibility of pilot error, pointing to the inexperience of the two pilots in flying in the Antarctic.

The recovery effort involved over 60 people from nearby McMurdo Station. There are several grim accounts of the recovery effort – imagine working at high-altitude, in the cold and your job is picking up bits and pieces of New Zealand’s largest single tragedy. No thanks!

Here are a few things to keep in mind during this period of adjustment:

Meals & Food
• You will be expected to make choices when it comes to meals, e.g. what to eat, how you would like it prepared and at what time would you like to eat.
• A restaurant is much like the galley except there are many food items from which to choose and there are many different styles of restaurants.
• When finished with a meal at a restaurant, you are obligated to pay for your meal.
• You will likely have to sit at an unfamiliar table at a restaurant, embrace the change.
• Smegma, “The Shocker”, santorum and flatulence are all unacceptable mealtime conversation topics.
• “Freshies” are referred to as fruits and vegetables and are in abundance at most restaurants.

Social Interaction
• No need to obsess over male to female ratios as there are people of both sexes in abundance in many parts of the world.
• Women tend to be self-conscious about their size, thus their size won’t be stenciled in giant numbers on their Carharrt overalls.
• In fact, people in general are fairly unlikely to be seen wearing Carharrt overalls in any social setting. Much like choices in food, choices in clothing will probably be extremely overwhelming. Many people in the real world have a tendency to wear different clothes every day of the week. Oh, and these clothes will have likely been laundered recently.
• If you are a male and wearing a skirt or wig, you may be mistaken for a clown or a homosexual; discretion is advised if you don’t wish to be identified with either of these groups. The good news is that this scenario isn’t likely owing to the fact that wigs and skirts aren’t nearly as readily available as you have become accustomed.
• If you are a female, wearing a skirt or dress doesn’t have to be reserved for special occasions such as midwinter or sunrise dinner. Go crazy, wear one every day if that’s your preference – it probably won’t end up smelling like diesel in the real world.
• People of small size and extremely youthful appearance are most likely children. Though tempting, staring in awe or disgust at children will likely get you labeled as a pervert, which, in the real world is a derogatory label.
• Those awful devices that spew forth advertisements, rhetoric and pseudo-drama are called televisions. Many people, especially in the U.S., seem enamored with these devices and insist on structuring much of their free-time around the so-called programming on them. This is a cultural oddity and must be respected lest you be thought of as cretinous.

Daily Activities
• You may find the transition to unstructured time difficult. Try your best to simply exist without rigid schedules. You probably won’t be able to rely on your outlook scheduler to remind you to do things. Take small steps in structuring your time; for instance, if you feel an unfamiliar twinge in your stomach, you may be feeling slight hunger – that means that it might be mealtime
• Speaking of mealtime, you can eat any time you like so no need to go to dinner just because you’re afraid you’ll miss out and be hungry later. If you are hungry later, you can simply eat
• Your day won’t be broken into four uniform blocks of time book-ended by snacks and coffee in the galley. It’ll be tough, but if you work at it, you can probably make the necessary adjustments and eventually find this way of life tolerable until you can get back to The Ice.

Most important, take lots of pictures and bring back stories for your travelogue next season!