Non-Animals

Almost all of these posts refer back to animals. Theres a few obvious
reasons for that- 1) I really like animals (duh). Its why I'm here, well
that and a decent paycheck. 2) Because everyday revolves around the
animals. They become part of your life, your family, you job, and your
surroundings. When I get up, I hear moms and pups calling, terns yelling at
me, skuas screeching about nothing. When I go to sleep, its the black
bellied or wilsons storm petrels, or terns continuing to yell at me, or
often the same moms and pups calling to each other. I've learned to check
when I go out to pee to make sure there isn't a fur seal or elephant seal
hiding around the corner where I am about to draw smiley faces in the snow
and when a giant petrel swoops just above my head in its search for dead
stuff to eat, it hardly phases me anymore. Needless to say, animals are a
big part of life here…

But animals are not the only part of life here. The psychologist in me (one
of my minors in college) wants to know what its like living in a small,
isolated group for an extended period of time. And to that I say its
surprisingly easy, if you have the right people. Now I'm a pretty easy
going guy and I think I get along with people really well, but I have also
been very lucky with who I have lived with both here and in Alaska. In
truth, these jobs are fairly self selecting. If you don't deal with other
people well, you rarely make it more than one season in a remote field
camp. However, people often do not get along with campmates and its
something that just has to be dealt with.

All that being said, I've found that in the "normal" world, things aren't
all that different. Whether in high school, college, grad school, or just
at home, I tended to hang out with the same 3-10 people on a routine basis.
While bars and social events provide the opportunity to talk to new people,
I think most groups of friends end up just talking amongst themselves
anyway. So really the only difference is I didn't get to pick this group of
friends (which, again, can be a big deal, but often works out). You also
build a sense of camaraderie very quickly in places like this. Not only are
you all in it together, but you really do depend on each other. It would be
tremendously difficult for us to get all our fur seal work done without the
help of the penguin biologists, and vice versa, they often get our help on
bigger projects. You also rely on everyone for other things, like support,
friendship, and daily frustrations. The truth is, when you are missing
Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, and your own birthday, the people you
are with become your family, for better or for worse. There are definitely
things I would change about the people I live with, but there are also many
things I've learned to love about them. I probably laugh more here than
anywhere else I have ever worked or lived.

…

Other non-animal aspects of living in Antarctica: Icebergs, dirt, daily
life.

Icebergs. We get them passing by occasionally. Some are small, only a few
feet across. Some are huge, maybe a mile or more across. We are far enough
north that we dont get pack ice here and the icebergs come and go fairly
infrequently, but its still pretty cool to see them out your back door. I
think people often think of icebergs as big, but not huge. Something that
at least might sneak up on your boat in the middle of the night, and there
are plenty of those around. But many of the ones we see are actually HUGE.
They can be miles across and hundreds of feet high. Sailing into one of
them would be like skillfully navigating an Ikea parking lot in your car
only to slam into the side of the store itself. It doesn't exactly come out
of nowhere. There are stories (if you read some of Shackleton's journey) of
sailors not knowing if something is land or just a giant iceberg. Its
pretty impressive. Then you realize that used to be part of a glacier and
get a little sad inside…

Dirt. Like snow, it becomes part of your daily life. Its funny to think
how, at home, I work hard at keeping (most) my pairs of shoes out of the
mud to keep them relatively clean. Here, you just walk through it. I'm
typically wearing boots made for that sort of things, but still. Its really
nice to just know you're going to get dirty, be dressed appropriately, and
not have to give it a second thought. If your boots are dirty, drag your
heals in the snow (or sand). If you smell, you smell. Maybe grab a few baby
wipes and treat yourself to a luxurious wipe down. If your work bibs are
dirty, you better just get used to it because thats going to keep
happening. Its just nice to not have to care about how I am dressed or the
condition of my clothing (or myself for that matter). My hair is usually
messed up. My beard is long and orange and I dont care. Everyone should try
it someday. Just wake up, grab some random clothes you don't care about and
just walk wherever life takes you. If the opportunity arises to get dirty,
just get dirty. At least YOU can come home and shower…

Routine: I think that routines can be really good for people. Structure
helps people accomplish goals, plan their lives, workout, etc. However, it
also just gets boring really quickly. We have structure here. We usually
get up between 8 and 9am (I realize some people would say that wide a
window is not very structured already). I do my tag resights everyday, but
after that you never know. It varies by day, weather, time of year, how you
feel, how the boss is feeling. My day a couple fridays ago was one of the
busiest I have had this season, but it was awesome.
8:30am- Get up, eat breakfast, maybe entered some data, waste time, suit up
10:30am- Leave camp to hike to Punta San Telmo, the southwestern most point
on the cape that we monitor, to conduct weekly phoned census there. The
hike is about 2.5-3 hours roundtrip and you usually encounter fur seals,
lots of weddell seals, leopard seals, penguins, and a whole mess of birds.
2pm- Resights
3pm-Lunch
3:30pm- Hexacopter ground station operator training- basically while the
pilot flies the hexacopter (like a quadcopter but with 6 rotors), I monitor
a video feed from the camera and some of the flight data. We are going to
attempt to map the entire coastline of the cape with aerial photos taken
from the hexacopter. I help direct the pilot where to go.
4pm- Seal captures to remove summer intruments
5:30pm- Head over to penguin colonies to help put out VHF telemetry tags on
penguins
8:30pm- Dinner
11pm- Bed

I love the variety and while the work is hard, it makes the time go by
quickly. It feels like it has been a long time since I was home, but it
does not feel like I have been here for going on 2.5 months now. And the 2
months I have left I know will blow by because of all the different
projects we have going.

I am going to cut this off here because it is getting long, but since it
has been a while since I've written anything, I will likely post something
very soon in addition to this. Possibly even at the same time. In the
meantime, check out our Sit Reps (link should be at the bottom of the page)
to see some photos from christmas time!