We live at McMurdo Station on Ross Island, near the Ross Ice Shelf. We are the most southerly station accessible by boat in the world. The population fluctuates from about 200 during winter and up to 1100 during the summer season. Everyone lives in dorms here and some are nicer than others (uppercase, middlecase, and lowercase – i.e. cool, sort of cool, not at all cool). Somehow we lucked out and were assigned to a newer and quieter dorm (maybe it is because we are so old). Our room has new furniture, a small refrigerator, two wardrobes, and a desk. We pushed our twin beds together and stuffed the crack in between with blankets so now we have a king sized bed!!! There are community style bathrooms down the hall and also a laundry room. The dorms are kept very warm.
As for work, we are both working the night shift until Christmas Eve and then we switch to days. Both shifts are twelve hours long, so right now we work from 6:00pm-6:00am. It's not that bad because there is sunlight all the time. We both work out of the same building; however, Mike gets to roam the station more than I do. Mike drives fork lifts and enormous heavy duty trucks to haul and move cargo. He is outside a lot and is REALLY experiencing Antarctica. Overall, he helps unload the giant C-17 army planes and then he helps move cargo all over the station. Right now the planes are landing out on an ice runway that is five minutes from town. That ice runway will shut down in about a month because the ice starts to break up and melt. Apparently the last few days of the runway are pretty scary for driving. You go through huge puddles of standing water. After that, the new runway is a 45 min drive one way. Isn't it funny to picture Mike driving a forklift all that way? He's really amazing!
Andrea has a desk job (mostly). She spends most of her day processing paperwork for all of the planes and keeping track of the passengers and all of their deployments. She gets to drive a big van around when flight crews request tours of our station. She drives out to the runway and picks them up and takes them around for about an hour. The crew spends most of their time in the station store buying all kinds of gear that says "Antarctica" on it. She also has to pick up passengers sometimes and help them haul all of their gear around.
Mike and I have Saturdays off together. He also has Wed off and I have Tues off. Twelve hour shifts don't allow for much time to do much more. We go to the gym where the treadmills are and Andrea is also playing volleyball in another gym. There is a two lane bowling alley. It has manual pinsetters – there is literally a person at the end of the lane who puts the pins into a thing which puts them back in place. These are so old that Brunswick (the bowling company) wants them back for their museum. Apparently, these are the last two of this kind still being used in the world.
We haven't gone exploring much outside because it has been too cold...figure that out, eh! Eventually, they say it will get warm enough to enjoy the outdoors and go hiking and cross-country skiing. We can't wait for that!
The only wildlife reports we get are sightings of Weddell seals on the ice. Every now and then the radio announces that there is a seal on the runway. The plane has to circle until it moves and people have to go out and scare it away. Once the ice starts to melt in the sound, more wildlife should start showing up closer to our town and then hopefully we can get pictures. There should be Adelie penguins nearby. A shuttle driver we work with said that Adelie penguins were walking through town last year. We hope that happens again!
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They have a crew which checks the ice's thickness to determine if the road is safe. Every day they check it several times, this will intesify as the current ice runway, which will be water soon enough, starts to melt.
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