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

Fairly recently I finished up a six part series (part one here in case you missed it)that gave a summary of my trip to Palmer Station. I’m fairly sure that I arrived here about six weeks ago and I haven’t found time to write very much about what life is like at Palmer, which should be enough to tell you that life is pretty busy here. I stepped off the boat literally running – I had about one week to get the layout from the outgoing mechanic and to try and make sense of all of the things that are such a departure from what I am used to in my job. Suffice it to say that I have a great deal of responsibility and a lot to keep up with – it’s been extremely challenging so far, but also rewarding. This is a beautiful place and I have become absolutely fascinated with the landscape that surrounds me here.

photographic evidence of alleged beauty

In addition to not being able to find much time to write, I also have a tough time finding anything to write about. My daily life seems to be full of more work stuff and less “Antarctic adventure” stuff…though that could be a product of my many months “on Ice” – it just doesn’t seem exciting or adventurous to me anymore. I do have some ideas on a few things to write about…so there’s still hope. Maybe by the time I actually get those things written it’ll be time for me to leave.

I have been playing around with videos a little bit – I really like tinkering with editing software and have taken the plunge into the mac world – once I get my new macbook look for a review on it and look for lots more video at that time….

Well, looking back at this post…it’s really little more than words on a computer screen….Hope you enjoy the picture.

The trip from Punta Arenas, Chile would take us through 500 miles of what is historically known as the roughest seas in the world; and in fact, our cruise was delayed for a couple of days in the vicinity of Cape Horn while we waited for a very strong low pressure system to pass through the area. Forecast models showed 50+ foot seas and the advisory from our forecasters strongly recommended against transiting The Drake while this system was present. As this was the first time I have ever spent this amount of time on rough seas, I had no idea of whether I would get seasick or not. As it turns out, I am one of the fortunate ones….with the exception of a bit of queasiness, I felt good during the entire crossing.

On the other side of the Drake, we were privileged to visit Deception Island. This island is fairly geographically unique in that it is a volcanic caldera. We sailed into the caldera and spent a few days inside while one of the science groups collected data on degradation of historic structures on the island.

Deception Island was used as a whaling station and sealing station in the late 1800′s and early 1900′s. It is currently home to a couple of seasonal Antarctic research stations and is a popular Antarctic cruise ship destination due to a large chinstrap penguin colony and the thermal hot springs that dot the beaches.

more photos

After an arduous flight schedule, and adding a few new members to our group, we arrived in Punta Arenas. Punta Arenas is a slightly gritty seaside town on the edge of the Straits of Magellan.

The city itself is fairly unremarkable. It serves as a port city for southern Chile and sees a fair bit of tourist traffic from Antarctic cruise ships and the like. It does boast having the “Southest most Golden Arches” [sic] in the world (Hi Mom!).

Most of us stayed in the same hotel in the city, which was also close to the pier where we would go the next day to board the ship. Prior to boarding the ship, however, we had to go through the process of getting our gear issue. This experience was quite a bit different than what it’s like on the other side of the continent. Due to the warmer maritime climate of Palmer, one needs far fewer articles of extreme cold weather gear and more rain gear. All-in-all, the process was relatively pain free.