Seals: Dead and Alive

Preserved seal carcass at Scott hut (they ate lots of seals and also heated the hut with the blubber)
View from Scott Hut Point
View looking back to McMurdo
A seal lying on its side, sunning, even though it was well below zero out! Look closely and you can see a smile ;o)
Shuttles office - hectic and crowded
Fuel bladders being made ready for the traverse. They are put on plastic slides and pulled by tractors. 8 people will be living in those 2 tiny buildings for months. They will travel 1100 miles first to South Pole, then beyond at 3mph! Their ultimate destination is AGAP, where Scott will be!
I get really hungry down here because I am out in the cold a lot. Fresh salad is a rarity.

It’s condition 2 outside, which means that visibility is less than ¼ mile and we’re not supposed to go off station without checking in with the fire station. If it gets to condition 3, everyone has to stay inside and all work stops. Darn, there goes the field trip to Scott Base store, at the New Zealand station, a few miles away, where they’re supposed to have really nice postcards and cool sweatshirts. No matter, just having a wide open afternoon is immensely pleasurable.

I don’t know if I’ve ever worked this many hours a week, except maybe fifteen years ago when I was doing the craft show business in Vermont. Last night while most everyone else on the station partied until 2 a.m., I went to bed early, and didn’t wake up until 7:45a.m.

I love Sunday mornings here because you can have a quiet cup of coffee in the galley while everyone else sleeps off their hangovers. Just like in Argentina, I know I am missing a big part of the culture down here by not going to the three bars on Saturday nights, but that scene has never held much appeal for me.

I prefer the solitary hikes to Scott hut to visit the hundred year old, perfectly preserved seal carcass, and seeing the live seals sunning out on the ice. This morning I jogged out there again, listening to the incongruous “Can’t Touch This” by MC Hammer on my ipod, bopping freely to the beat while scrambling around the hills near Scott hut. There is a cross erected near there in honor of George T. Vince who drowned right there on the bay in 1902. I got a strange feeling of time vertigo, seeing the new-looking wood cross(things just don’t deteriorate down here), and realizing that the hundred years that have passed are but a blink in this cold, windy place. This continent has a way of making human lives feel so fleeting.

I have a handle on the job now, although I still have a lot to learn about runway protocol, radio chatter, and driving Ivan (the biggest vehicle). My boss, Kris, is very clear in her expectations and forthright about any mistakes we might make, but she also doesn’t hold grudges. Yesterday at lunch, she said, “Jen, I like your eye liner.” It was the first time she had really talked to me, instead of training me, so it made me happy. I think she's going to be a good boss, but when I was younger, I would definitely have been intimidated by her manner.

I was telling Elizabeth on the phone this morning that the cold down here is a great equalizer. Everyone wears exactly the same thing and it is almost impossible to look nice. Therefore people aren’t really sized up according to looks, clothes, body shape, car they drive, or house they own. The new commodity for putting ourselves into hierarchies (for isn’t that what humans always do) down here seems to be how long you have been on the ice and how good of a job you have. Consequently, for lowly fingies like me, looking out on the sea of faces at mealtimes can be intimidating. I usually take a quick glance out, then scuttle over to some side table, and either eat quickly alone, or find some other new person eating by themselves. This is already beginning to be easier as I meet more people though, but I hope that I will always make an effort to sit with new folks as the season progresses. (People come and go all season.)

My coworkers are fantastic. Jammer Joe from Glacier Park, is nearly 80 and is still so excited by life. He has a white handlebar mustache which he applies wax to each morning. He whispered to me the other day “women down here on the ice are so open, they don’t mind talking about boobs and such.It's not like the old days, and I think that’s good.” He heavily pronounces the “h” in vehicles. Then there is Bill, another old timer who flirts shamelessly with everyone, but nearly tears up when he talks about his dear wife of 35 years, waiting for him in Kansas. His accent is so reminiscent of the rough years I spent on the North Shore of Boston when the kids were little. He calls any woman younger than fifty "girl" and is always saying "What's the hurry? We're all here til February." He is an excellent trainer in the large vehicles because he is patient and he tells great stories. There are a bunch of younger adventure types, a few women older than me, and a couple of middle-aged men. It’s a nice mix.

Scott is in Christchurch enjoying the sights and taking lots of pictures, I'm sure. I will be driving a large vehicle out to Pegasus field tomorrow evening to pick him up. Passengers are not supposed to stop on their way off the plane to take pictures, lest they get sucked into the jet engines, so you all know that Scott will probably be the one who gets yelled at by the National Guard to get moving ;-) Can't wait to see him!