Drawing Near

It was beyond picture perfect today. We had a layer of snow last night on top of the sea ice that had moved in a couple of days prior. No wind, no clouds, abundant sunshine today. Everything looked pristine. It was so bright that I still had to squint through sunglasses.

This time of my deployment each season it's easy to start thinking about "lasts". I had my last housemouse and station meeting. This was my last Sunday hike up the glacier. This week will be full of them: last line handling, last GASH, last trip to Terra Lab, last view of the station as we slip away on the ship. I know the routine. People coming and going is routine around here. We all have temporary stays, nobody owns the place....not even crusty leftover winterovers who seem to act like they do.

The boat should be here tomorrow or maybe the day after that. A few people will arrive on this port call as a few others depart. I'll be heading north along with four other winterovers and a couple of home office types. I'll have familiar faces with me on the crossing of the Drake and when I arrive in Punta Arenas. We'll help each other out getting to our hotels, we'll meet for a last hurrah dinner and probably go to bed early. Airport the next day, we're mostly going to be heading the same way as far as Santiago. From there we splinter off to our chosen lives.

I don't get giddy with excitement for what is coming, not because I'm sad to leave or because it's somewhat predictable. It happens to be part of the life I choose. At the end of a long shift at work, it's my commute. It is different though, different from punching out a time card at a factory on a Friday afternoon. Nothing that routine. The fact that I'm leaving such a special place isn't lost on me. I spend so much of my time in this program saying goodbye to fantastic friends, the type of people you seem to only run across in Antarctica. My departure isn't different from anyone else's and I'm affected by this place like everyone else.

I'll leave here neither happy nor sad, but grateful that I had this experience.

Mudslide

My replacement and I went for a walk in the backyard today, one of the finest days I can remember down here. The sun was out walking his dog. There was an amazing stillness to the air, a stillness amplified by how crazy windy it has been here since the boat left a couple of weeks ago. We barely had a chance to walk outside without being slammed by powerful gusts, then we suddenly get treated to a day like today.

The heavy snows from the last month are melting so quickly that the runoff is creating tiny mudslides in the backyard. We came across what appeared to be a fresh spring, brown water still bubbling down across the quickly fading snow. It's hard to picture mud in Antarctica, something tells the mind that this place must be frozen and beneath the ice it must be solid rock. Each footstep along a ridge revealed the oozy truth. As we walked on the fragile soil, we were creating new mudslides that bled down the hill.

I could have sat and watched this all day.

After that rare treat, we continued our walk toward the back of Arthur Harbor. A seal stopped by to say hello before heading along in search of freshies. We headed up the glacier to inspect the cables leading to one of the experiments that we tend to. We started getting warm enough that we took our jackets off. Living under the ozone hole, I was glad I smeared on a little sunscreen ahead of time. There were plenty of chances to catch amazing panoramas. Ultimately, clouds started to impinge on the day, with coolness returning as we reached the top. We snapped our photos and headed down, content with having such a day thrown into the un-routine of life in Antarctica.

A view of the back of Arthur Harbor.

Brian taking in a sundog.

You can almost touch it.

When Spring Feels Like Autumn

Winds have swirled the same snow around like leaves being raked into drifts that you can jump in. It has gotten colder. Gloomy clouds seem close enough to hike to. Winter ended a couple of weeks ago with the solstice, but we have barely seen the sun for a month. Many of my friend have gone away, as if starting a new semester of school. Will I see them again next season?

It's the early beginnings of summer along the Antarctic peninsula. Birds are flying overhead more often. The sea ice is breaking up allowing waves to charge around the inlet like ponies. Soon the seals and penguins will return in hordes to start their breeding. It's light outside before I wake up, and I wake up hours before work starts. There are new people who look at me with (fear? pity? amusement?) knowing understanding. For them the summer may be getting underway, but for me the winter is over.

There are a few others around, I'm not the only winterover left here for the month. In some ways it's good to have the familiar personalities here still. We see all of the memories in one another. In some ways it is merely prolonging the transition, pulling the bandage off over a period of weeks. Not that there are any wounds, this was a great winter, my best in Antarctica. It was such a small group that we couldn't help but be tight-knit. We leaned on one another, created smiles, kept each other sane (-ish). No conflicts, few dramas. Good times don't make good stories, which is why I didn't write too much this winter. There's the rub. When a good thing ends, it always feels more like autumn than spring.

The 2009 Winter Crew

The boat is set to arrive tomorrow sometime. The season is almost over. When the boat arrives it will be a crazy week over turnover to the summer folk, then most of the winter overs will leave. We had a great crew working at Palmer this winter, I'll miss them when they're gone.

There we all are: Jack, Hansen, Harry, Webster, Me, Jeff, Marin, Bru, Marsha, Nate, Casey, Tom, Sean, Ken, Coop, Kris.

Sunset

It was another beautiful day here, just thought I would share the view. It's the end of the month, nearing the end of another winter season. Daylight is getting longer, I even have an illuminated path on my walk home from work now. Speaking of the walk home, I should get on that now....

As seen just minutes ago.

Rough Draft

Time is drawing near that I may find myself looking for employment after my time here on the ice. I understand that it's a tough economy right now and a lot has changed during my four years of coming to Antarctica. I thought I would update my resume with the skills, experiences, and education that I have acquired while deployed here. I'm posting a rough draft below for now. I'll bump out the dents before posting it to an official job search site.



Neal Scheibe
Palmer Station
Anvers Island
Antarctica
hoosierhippie@yahoo.com

EXPERIENCE
Raytheon Polar Services Company
Research Associate September 2005 - Present
Responsible for maintaining experiments at South Pole and Palmer Station, Antarctica.
o When the experiments are working fine all by themselves, I bask in the intermittent glow of their reassuring blinks. In the event of an experiment malfunction, I do not rest until the problem is fixed, leaving no possible course of action unexplored. I have even been known to read the instruction manual or, in the most extreme instances, ask for help.
o I have endured frost-nipped extremities for the sake of performing routine maintenance. I have also handled performing manual tasking without being able to see what I’m doing. I also work well at heights and in enclosed spaces.
o My daily commute consists of a walk through cold, dark, usually windy conditions to seek refuge in a building seldom visited by most other station members, mainly due to the lack of running water.
o Performed outreach endeavors ranging from a remote satellite interview a with television celebrity to a personal on-location talk to a small group of children.
o Worked long shifts: November – November, February – November, and March - October.
o Performed other duties as required, including but not limited to: Cleaning toilets, cleaning the kitchen, cleaning halls, cleaning my workspace, cleaning other people’s workspace, cleaning the recreation areas, cleaning my room before leaving, dragging heavy things around on a sled, carrying heavy things, pushing/pulling heavy things, tearing things down, putting them back up again, digging a hole then moving it somewhere else, growing copious amounts of hair, not showering for days, counting things, finding lost things, organizing things, reorganizing things, filling out forms and making copies right away to file, learning operating systems known by only a handful of other people, snow removal, and mandatory down time.

SKILLS
o Have learned to look up when walking outside in the dark. Can’t see where I’m going usually anyway and the sky might do something cool.
o Can keep a Zodiac inflatable boat pinned to a rock face in large sea swells while gear is unloaded to the shore.
o Breathes a whole tank of air faster than just about anyone else on the fire team.
o Demonstrated on several occasions to be able to tie any knot, except the specific one needed at any particular moment.
o Long legs are handy for post-holing through deep snow.
o Can receive electrical shocked from lettuce and other food items.
o Vacuuming in tight quarters.
o Knows how to dress properly for a warm day of standing around outside or a cold day of hard work and everything in between.
o Works well with a drooling nose, beard frozen to neck gaiter with own breath, and iced over goggles.

EDUCATION
Fire School, Denver CO March 2009
Ocean Search and Rescue Training, Page AZ March 2008 & 09
Orientation Class, Centennial CO Each Time I Deploy
Watched “Shake Hands With Danger” At Least Once Per Winter


BENEFITS EXPECTATIONS
o Short commutes: no more than 5 minutes by foot.
o Unlimited free food provided at least twice a day by a top quality chef.
o Three months off per year, gradually increasing to six months off.
o Housing must be provided by company.
o All expense travel to exotic locations.
o Admission to science discussions by experts in the field.
o Free medical care.
o Free magazine subscriptions, books, movies, music, gym membership, and internet.
o Prefer to work with some of the coolest people on the planet.

Learn My Secret Identity

Wha?!?! Two posts in one day??? Ubetcha.

I got interviewed again a couple of weeks ago, this time by the local paper for the USAP, The Antarctic Sun. You can read the interview here.

The first time Peter interviewed me, I felt like an idiot because I had been on the ice for about 5 days and didn't know what I was talking about. This time I couldn't use the same excuse for feeling like an idiot, but he seemed to smooth over the bumps pretty well. In both pictures of me, I'm crouching so my gangliness doesn't show so much.