THE
JOURNEY SOUTH
When you
look at the sun, which way does she move across the sky? Think about
that. Go
out and look. Take your time. Where I am the sun moves across the sky
from
right to left. At this time of year she never sets, just moves around
in a circle
as the earth turns about its pole only a few hundred miles away.
What
brings me to this place? Why would anyone want to come here? All the
usual
reasons. Money, adventure, ego, education, probably several others as
well but
not necessarily in any particular order. Certainly there is money to be
made
here, and the opportunity for travel, to see places that one might
never see
otherwise is high on the list. Especially when I stop and think that
the money
I am being paid is far more than what I will ever pay in taxes. But I
think it
is the chance to travel, meet new people, new foods, learn new things
that is
the main drive.
I first
heard about this job when several people I had worked with at the Mount
Washington Observatory and the Appalachian Mountain Club Pinkham Notch
Camp
came back to report on the beautiful sunsets and aurora at McMurdo
Station on
Ross Island. I remembered reading somewhere in one of my Scout books
about Paul
Siple, a Boy Scout who went on Byrd's first Antarctic expedition.
It took Siple
months to get to the Ross Ice Shelf, working his way, along side others
in the
expeditionary force, on the bark, City of New York. That was in 1939;
today one
can get here in two days if you make all the right connexions. Actually
it
takes only one day since you gain a day crossing the International Date
Line.
My journey
really got started with the medical and dental examinations the Navy
requires
of all participants in the United States Antarctic Research Programme.
Especially during winter-over there is only very limited medical
assistance at
McMurdo so you need to be in excellent health. After two days of poking
and
prodding and x-rays and needles-putting-stuff-in and
needles-taking-stuff-out I
was pronounced fit enough for the next step. That was a psychiatric
examination
at the Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland. The U.S. Navy is
responsible for
the overall operation of USARP and they want to be sure, as sure as
they can, that
all the winter-over personnel will not flip out when the sun sets for
the last
time. For just as much as there is continuous daylight in the summer
south of
the Antarctic Circle, in the winter there is continuous dark.
Washington is a
nice place to visit just like Boston is a nice place to be from; except
for the
Mall and the Smithsonian, they both look the same. The exam was
interesting to
say the least. There was about two-hundred questions, multiple guess,
and no
right answers. One that I puzzled over for a while was like on Sesame
Street:
One of these things just doesn’t belong here... a, dog
b, bird c, cow; which
would you choose?
So much
for tests, eh. Twenty-four hours of the World's Worst Traffic and I was
back in
the Land of the World's Worst Weather for a week of waiting for results
and
preparing myself for the possibility that I just might pass. I did, and
suddenly there wasn't enough time to do all the things to be done.
Write a
will, shop for sox, put my bus up on blocks; the list went on and on
and some
of those things are yet to be done. Oh well, maybe they don't really
need to be
done after all.
Ready or
not the plane left Sunday noon. Monday I spent the morning at the
office of
Antarctic Services Inc. (ANS) a part of ITT, in Paramus N.J., filling
out form
after form of insurance, employment agreement, tax deduction, until
almost too
late to catch the next plane. I wasn't sure if my baggage made it onto
the same
plane but no matter there was such a headwind it would have time to
catch up.
Such was not to be. I changed planes in Saint Paul for Los Angles and
the
baggage didn't. It was busy being run over by a truck. I didn't find
out until
my computer didn't show up at LAX, and it wouldn't until after my next
plane
left. Well, that caused a day’s delay. All the hurry-hurry was lost, it
would
take most of the next day to replace the damaged bags and inspect their
contents for hidden losses.
By Tuesday
evening everything was back on track and the flight to Honolulu was
uneventful.
I'd already seen the movie so used the time to make repairs and read.
Besides,
there is not much to see in the dark over water. The plane stayed on
the ground
in Honolulu for a couple of hours whilst they put a new tape on the VCR
and
restocked the galley with breakfast, then we were off to New Zealand.
The
excitement mounted; finally I would get a chance to use my passport. So
far I'd
been to all these places in earlier travels; New Zealand would be a new
country
for me not to mention going south of the equator. This was a long
flight and
fairly bumpy too. Finally I was able to find a place on the deck under
the
television screen to stretch out and sleep through another movie.
Breakfast was
nearly cancelled due to the choppy conditions but after several false
starts
the flight attendants were able to make a go of it and we had a not too
mouldy
omelet just before landing.
At
Auckland New Zealand, where the plane was met by a representative from
ANS, the
season was summer. I was over dressed. Kids were running around in
shorts, even
the customs agents were wearing shorts. I could hardly wait to get to
my hotel
and change. This would be my last chance to walk barefoot in the grass,
to
climb a tree, to be warm, for a year. With less than forty-eight hours
till
departure for “The Ice” there was no time to loose.
The
Croydon Inn is a bed and breakfast place only a few blocks from
Cathedral
Square in downtown Christchurch. In addition to the sun moving across
the sky
the other way round from what it does up north the people drive on the
other
side of the street, all the cars have their steering wheels on the
passenger
side. It takes some getting use to. There were lots of bicycles on the
road and
all over downtown there were special parking places for bicycles and
motorcycles.
At the
bank I changed some U.S. dollars for N.Z. dollars. The exchange is in
our
favour just now so I got about 160$NZ for 100$US. But it really doesn't
matter
all that much because most everything costs more anyhow. The paper
money is
interesting in that the various denominations are different colours and
sizes:
ones are brown and smallest, twos are violet and larger, fives are red,
tens
blue, twenties green and the largest of the bills I had. Fifties are
orange and
the same size as the twenty.
Bright and
early Saturday morning I was back at the airfield for the long flight
to Ross
Island and McMurdo Station. By now there were several others like
myself
traveling in the same direction. First thing on the agenda was to get
into our
winter clothing because the flight over water to McMurdo was towards
winter and
we must be prepared for emergency landing and survival on the ice. Long
underwear, wool trousers, heavy sox, mouse boots, bright red parka,
hat,
mittens, and special sun glasses. All that, on a hot December day that
was like
late June back home, weighed about twenty pounds and now we had to
stand still
and wait for customs and then transportation to the plane.
The
customs man went over us with a dog, the security man went over us with
a metal
detector and the load master checked everything with a scale. Then we
waited.
In the summer-warm passenger lounge of an airport in Christchurch New
Zealand
we peeled off layers of Antarctic clothing and watched "Chips" and
"Beverly Hills Cop". Now I understand better why the boy who stopped
to chat for a while on his way home from school yesterday thought that
all
Yanks come from California.
The U.S.
Navy plane we would fly on this time was not as large as some of the
commercial
liners I had been on in the past few days. It was a four engine
turbo-prop with
two extra fuel tanks hanging under the wings, a back door through which
you
could drive a truck, and around its wheels were skis that would permit
it to
land on the ice. All of our luggage had been piled on a pallet and tied
down
with a cargo net. This pallet, along with two others of mail and spare
parts,
had been loaded through the back door. We gathered on the flightline
and
listened to one of the crew explain ditching procedures and how to get
into an
exposure suit before boarding through a small hatch near the front
where we
were each given ear plugs to protect against hearing loss since this
plane does
not have the soundproofing of the commercial liners.
The flight
was long and noisy. I found a place to sleep on top of one of the mail
pallets
and was quite comfortable for a while even though I couldn't find any
mail for
me. As we neared Antarctica the clouds below broke and we could see ice
bergs,
stark white against the deep blue of the ocean, waiting, like parts of
a
jig-saw puzzle, for some giant to assemble. Seven hours after takeoff
from
Christchurch New Zealand flight zero-two x-ray delta bumped down on the
Ross
Ice Shelf of McMurdo Bay, Antarctica.
—30—
This
letter is COPYRIGHT by Alfred J. Oxton, 1988-2009, McMurdo Station,
Ross
Island, Antarctica.
No portion
may be reproduced by any means without my express written permission.
