Boondoggle

The other day I realized that I had almost forgotten that I was in Antarctica! I had grown so accustomed to seeing the same scenary, people, food, and same routine everyday that I forgot that there is more to this beautiful continent than the square mile that I spend all my time in. I was given this chance on Halloween weekend when my boss came up to me to tell me that a) My 2 day weekend would be extended to a 3 day weekend (awesome!), and b) That I would be going to a dive site with a dive team to "dive tend" (awesomer!). To explain this a little more, we normally work 6 day weeks and we only get a few 2 day weekends for holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas. Since I work in the galley and we are one of the few departments to work Sundays, our days off are different and we still have to work on the actual holiday, so we get our 2 day weekend spaced out amongst us throughout the month before the holiday. My Thanksgiving holiday just so happened to land on the actual weekend of Halloween and then I had my dive tending adventure the day before, which gets you out of work for the day, 3 day weekend! My chance to dive tend is what they call a "boondoggle", or morale trip officially. It's supposed to be offered to people "based on excellent job performance", as explained in my email telling me about the trip.



Not everyone is offered a fun and exciting boondoggle, and some being more coveted than others. Some people are able to go to the South Pole, Dry Valleys (a cool looking place), or even get a helicopter ride, instead of the dive tending. There had been other friends of mine that recieved their boondoggle prior to me that did do the dive tending but they said that it wasn't anything special at all. They simply sat in a little hut right in front of the base and didn't get to see any animals or anything to really write home about. So, when I heard that I was going to be dive tending, I was mainly excited just for the extra day off. Come the day of my boondoggle though, I was pleasantly surprised when I showed up at the dive locker to find that the place that we were going to be going to was actually an hour and fifteen minute drive away from the piece of rock that I call home. It wasn't the clearest day but I didn't care because for the first time in 2 1/2 months, I was going to see something other than McMurdo Station for a few hours and the clouds weren't too low that I couldn't see some of the mountains surrounding us! On the lovely long drive out to the dive hut, I was able to sit and chat a bit with two of the divers I would be helping and found out that they were actually quite accomplished in life, somewhat belittling me! The one woman was a Mary Lynn Price, a writer, underwater photographer/filmographer, and also has some podcasts about diving. She was a very nice woman and this was going to be her very first dive in Anctarctica and I would urge you to check out her website: http://inmotion.typepad.com/women_antarctica/. The other man was Henry Kaiser, who has done much filming both above and below water, as well as well-known guitarist. He was also a producer/composer for a new movie about Antarctica, called "Encounters at the End of the World", which I would recommend you go rent. So, after the long drive, we finally arrived at the dive hut at Little Razorback Island, where I helped them unload the vehicle and then helped them a bit to suit up and get all their gear on. While they were underwater, I finally got to step outside for a few minutes and walk around and enjoy the silence! It was wonderful not to hear any vehicles or the power plant in the distance and there were even Weddell seals around! After a bit, it was time to go back into the hut and help the divers get their gear off and lift it out of the water and then help them get out of their gear. We then listened to them talk about the wonderful, beautiful, colorful world under the ice. I have gone diving in the past and this made me very jealous, especially since the visibility is almost 800 feet! They then decided that they weren't going to do another dive for the day but that they would open up another hole they had in another hut and then we would make one more stop on the way back to some ice caves and that we should walk around the island for a bit while they loaded up. So, me and Crystal, the other dive tender for the day, almost reluctantly decided to go explore. After a minute or two, we noticed that there were many cracks in the ice around us which kind of worried us especially since we were out of sight of the other people and falling through could end in a most uncomfortable result! So, we decided to walk around in sight of the dive hut and look at the seals and their pools of blood that we were told were either from birthing or males fighting! On the way back though, my life suddenly flashed before my eyes when my foot suddenly stepped into a crevasse and my whole leg fell through the ice for a split second before I was luckily able to step right back out quickly! The crevasse was thankfully only wide enough for my one leg to fit through and 7 feet thick so I didn't get wet! We then followed one of the divers to a group of scientist that were doing something with the seals and that is when I got to see the little seal pups that were only a few days old and got within 5 feet of them, which was amazing to get that close to wildlife down here and see how lazy they were, barely raising their heads to snort at us! We then turned around and headed back to the vehicle where I suddenly stepped through another crevasse again but luckily ended with the same dry result! I didn't feel so bad though this time, since one of the divers had done the same thing just a minute before me. So, I changed my pants for the second time and we loaded into the vehicle and headed to the second dive hut where we shoveled some ice out of the hole and headed home. On the way back though, we stopped at an ice cave, where you basically have to slide down to get into it, but once we were in there, we could stand up fully. Being in the cave was amazing and the ice gave off the most wonderful shade of blue you could imagine. This was a neat adventure too, because it's apparantly the first time it had been there for a few years and even longer before that. After a little look around, we then loaded back into the vehicle and drove back to the miserable looking station where we got another surprise. Henry then took us into his office where he showed us some videos that are on the Encounters movie as extras. They were the underwater videos of the area right where we had been that day and we were also the first people he had shown them to before, so I felt quite privileged to be able to view them.





So, that was the end of my wonderful boondoggle, which actually turned out not to be a boondoggle by definition at all, but I had another adventure the following weekend! As one of the few trips that the station offers, we are able to travel to a spot called Cape Evans and then they tour the ice caves on the way back as well. Cape Evans is about 1 hour 45 minutes out of town by a huge "Delta" bus-type vehicle, with wheels as tall as me! It is a point, near the awesome Barnes Glacier, that was discovered in 1901-04 by Robert Scott, who later built a hut there in 1910, Scott's Hut. It was used by the New Zealand explorers for 2 winters and in later years by other expeditions such as Earnest Shackleton. Nowadays, the hut is still in excellent condition and left just as the day that they left suddenly. This includes all of their food supply, which was interesting to see what they lived on, as well as their medical supplies and samples. And, there was even a dead Emporer penguin that they were going to disect on the table, from almost 100 years ago! And then there were other interesting things like words written in their own blood from the scurvy when they were going crazy, as well as a list of the men that was being crossed off as they died. Outdoors it was a beautiful area. The hut was basically at the base of Mount Erebus and right on the sea that at the moment had some glaciers that were frozen in place since last winter. And, out a ways in front of the hut was the Barnes Glacier with about a 300 ft face that I believe is one of the largest glaciers in the world. After we looked around for a bit, we headed back home and to stop at the ice caves on the way. On the way though, we came up behind a lone Adelie penguin that was running down the road in front of us and then he would slide on his stomach. So, we all rushed out of the delta to take pics of him and see him, but he got too far ahead. So, our lead foot driver instructed us to all hurry back in where he floored it, offroad style, to get in front of the penguin a bit so that he would run to us. So, we all piled out and were able to get some awesome pics. We then got back into the delta where we only had to go a little bit further to get to the ice caves where we went in groups to tour. As we were waiting there, the little guy came up behind us again and stopped for a few minutes, probably from being scared to death and not wanting to go back the way he came! But after someone moved in behind him, in kind of freaked him out so he waddled on ahead and with millions of pictures being taken as he scampered off into the sunset(ish), coming within 5 feet of me!


So, I am back in McMurdo Station. But, I hope that those stories will not be my last of getting off of the rock, if even for a few hours, before I go home. I did get to go on a little drive in a "Tucker" the other day where we went out a little ways and I actually snowboarded for the first time in my life and it was here in Antarctica. I fell a lot. But, on the way home, I got to drive the tucker, which was pretty fun.