This season, instead of having nothing new to write about, I’m keeping so busy with both work and other projects that I’m very easily distracted from writing much. I always think it’s neat to see Antarctica from other peoples’ perspectives – here’s a few links to other people who maintain Antarctica related blogs:

First, our local big-time celebrity (he made an appearance on Oprah!) and self-proclaimed action-nerd – see what Payot is up to

See Antarctica through fresh eyes – Jeff writes about his first deployment to Antarctica

Easily my favorite person on the entire continent – Marsha made it down for the second half of the Palmer winter.

See Palmer through Sean’s lens

Ice veteran Craig spent the first half of the Palmer winter with us. Read his take on it and other commentary on Antarctica and other places at Travelin’ with the Rev (He got a priest’s license from an ad in the back of Rolling Stone or something…)

Genevieve at The South Pole

Ken at McMurdo

Krissie spends the winter at The South Pole

Without a doubt, at any remote location, and even more so during an Antarctic winter, food is the driving force behind morale. The kitchen staff at any Antarctic research station have one of the toughest jobs – take an intimate look at how one of them keeps it all together at Harriett’s Tomato.

Lee is at McMurdo for the winter

So, here’s a guy who actually does keep up with his blog and has a gift for writing. I’ve been following it since he got to the ice, followed along as he made the decision to extend his summer job into a winter over contract…. check it out at Drowning in Miscellany

A couple of other Antarctic related sites:
The (un)official Palmer Station site
The (un)official South Pole Station site
Sixty South
Antarctic Memories Discussion Forum

If I’ve missed yours and you would like a link here, simply let me know (use the contact link near the top if you haven’t already got my email address)

The last northbound ship for the season has departed. Each time a ship leaves, it takes friends with it. Those left behind pay homage to those who are leaving. The water is cold.

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Palmer station, being the least populated of the three year-round U.S. research stations, requires all personnel here to fill several roles. Palmer is simply too small to support a dedicated fire department, full-time dishwasher (or D.A. – dining attendant at the other stations) or dedicated laborer (G.A. at the other stations), janitor, equipment operator and many other jobs. Despite the fact we haven’t got all of those people, we must still be ready to respond to emergencies, or wash dishes, or shovel snow or take care of any of a hundred other tasks.

You may remember from an earlier post that I went to Denver, CO for fire school with nine of my fellow winterovers. The training that I received there was all in preparation for becoming a part of the fire team here at Palmer station.

Because I’m the power plant guy my role is actually pretty dull when it comes to responding to a fire type emergency. I report directly to my work center and stand by in case power needs to be cut to another building.

In this photo, you see three members of the SCBA (self-contained breathing apparatus) team practicing with fire hoses charged from two fire pumps in series.

To give you some idea as to how all this breaks down and the impact that a fire emergency or drill has on the population here – think about the numbers involved. When the boat leaves in late June and the population settles for the winter, there will be 19 people on station. Of these 19, one person has to be in charge – an incident commander. One person has to be coordinating communications, one person has to be accounting for everyone. We have two designated first responders and six designated SCBA people, one designated fire marshall, a doctor to deal with any medical emergencies, two people in utilities to deal with turning off power (one of those people is me – another goes to the emergency power plant) and people to run both fire pumps – this means that everyone has a direct role in responding to a fire. Pretty heavy stuff and speaks volumes as to why prevention of fires and accountability of people must be very strictly maintained.

Taking statistics seems like a strange thing to do as a hobby, yet for hundreds of men in the Antarctic it makes perfect sense.

Going to be at McMurdo station Antarctica in early October? Head up to the carp shop break room during flight operations at the ice runway for a glimpse into what I mean. A handful of leftover winter carpenters and a few that have been on Ice since August will be gathered around, vying for their turn on the binoculars so that they can proudly proclaim “I saw her first!”. The computer savvy among these gnarled and randy boys will have already done their homework, perusing the flight manifest to determine the ratio of M:F (which is typically 3:1 by the way). Early October is an exciting time despite, or perhaps because of this strange ritual.

If you happen to go to a smaller station, or as the population decreases in preparation for winter, this phenomenon grows ever stronger and the ratio becomes THE hot topic for a short period of time.

At Palmer, the winter population is actually dynamic so the hobbyist statisticians here get more than one chance to examine the inbound manifest. An apparent typo made April’s ship manifest into something quite fun. One of the astute statisticians happened to notice that one of the passengers on the list was neither M nor F but rather ‘R’ and the speculation as to whether or not “Megan” was a pirate led to countless hours of fun and frivolity. I know, I know, doesn’t take much.

Megan showed up and….well, she is a pirate…ACK!!! a pirate. Somebody summon a ninja!

theRRRe she is on the left, posing with the science group she is here with. Turns out she is a teacher from an Alabama high school here on an outreach program and her school’s mascot is a pirate. She keeps really good daily journals and has posted quite a few pictures on her school’s website: http://www.fairhopehs.com

Sometimes things get weird.

First, there is a fishing group on station who decided to provide some dinner theater to promote their upcoming fishing cruise – they promoted the presumably once-in-a-lifetime chance to spend the night with “not one, not two, but three women in rubber suits” – it was definitely entertaining and their bravery for doing this was much appreciated by all.

Second, our chef has a family member who gets involved in a HIV/AIDS awareness and education charity. The chef showed his support by organizing a hair cut raffle. The original intent was for him to offer his head as a fund raiser. He managed to get a couple other people to join in and….well, you’ll see the results in the accompanying video.

Third, the whale tagging crew came in from their ten-day cruise and some of the members of the support staff on the ship requested karaoke. Somehow or another this event got dubbed “boat girl karaoke” and…well, again here are the results all mashed up into one video.

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