Author: edelaquess92

As well as paid work, free housing, and free food, I really, really like that McMurdo has so many free fitness and yoga classes.

Besides dancing and hula-hooping like a maniac in the big gym during the Halloween party, a few jogs on the treadmill in the smaller “gerbil gym,” and some hikes around the station, the only fitness activity I’ve engaged in is yoga.

There are regular fitness classes every week, with names like “The Shaun T. Beachbody Workout” and “Extreme Abs with Ellie.” I haven’t attended any of those yet, although I could definitely stand to get some extreme abs between my office job, lack of regular salads, and 24/7 access to pizza.

I have gone to a few yoga classes with two instructors, Deany and Joolee, and every time I leave I think I should go more. I went to yoga classes almost every day for about six months in 2016, but warmer weather drove me out of the yoga studio and onto my bike, my preferred form of transport and exercise. I never returned.

But now that I have access to yoga that’s 1) free and 2) a two-minute walk from my dorm, I am inclined to take up yoga again. The weather is finally getting warm enough that a hike on one of the Ross Island trails no longer feels like a battle for survival, but as well as being a nice, low-key exercise, yoga helps calm my brain on days when I feel off my game due to lack of sleep, trying to do all the things at once (the FOMO isn’t completely gone), or the looming question of “What the hell am I going to do with myself after Antarctica?”

And that is a question I have a lot lately.

For a community that has a population of about 800-1000 people, McMurdo has a vibrant music scene.

I suspect the band room and gear issue have something to do with it. At McMurdo’s gear issue room, you can borrow musical instruments of all kinds for free (with a deposit). I’ve seen lots of percussion instruments, several keyboards, a few ukuleles, an accordion, a concertina, some wind instruments, and several guitars there. I donated my red plastic p-bone trombone, since I hadn’t played it in ages and thought it might be good for some giggles here.

The band room is a music lover’s paradise. Specifically, it’s an electric guitar lover’s paradise. But it also has several electric basses, a drum set, keyboard, banjo, ukulele, and acoustic-electric violin that I was overjoyed to see, since I had elected not to bring my own violin. Allegedly there’s a cello somewhere on the band room loft, but I haven’t gone up to investigate.

I was invited to join a bluegrass band called “Sugarfoot” less than two weeks after arriving. I sat next to a man with a digital recorder in the computer room one evening and was nosy enough to ask him about it. Turns out he was Sugarfoot’s mandolin player, and they were looking for a fiddle player.

That will teach me to be nosy in computer rooms.

We have had one gig so far, at Gallagher’s pub. It was a lot of fun and it was the first time I had ever played in a bar.

I really like playing with Sugarfoot. Being in a band was near the top of my McMurdo wish list, and playing music here has helped me miss my band back home a little less. If I come back next year, which I’m hoping to do, I might try to form a singing group.

Most of the bands I’ve heard or heard of so far are rock bands. Cover bands seem to be pretty common. One of my bandmates told me there was once a Weezer cover band here called “Freezer.” McMurdo-themed names abound. When Sugarfoot played at Gallagher’s, we were opening for a saxophone-led rock band called “Yoga with Deany,” named after one of McMurdo’s beloved volunteer yoga instructors.

Band room.

Band room.

So happy to have this here!

Not a great photo, but here’s Sugarfoot playing at Gallagher’s.

Staff at McMurdo are eligible to go on what are called “boondoggles,” which are trips outside of the station meant to boost morale. They often serve a practical purpose as well, as a boondoggle may involve helping a work center with a job that requires some extra hands.

In early November I got to go on a boondoggle to Cape Reynolds, about 350 miles north of McMurdo, at the end of David Glacier. This is the site of one of many emergency fuel caches placed throughout Antarctica. Myself, another boondoggler, and two fuels staff or “fuelies” flew in an eight-seat Twin Otter airplane to this fuel cache. I helped move metal drums of fuel, handed the fuelies their tools as needed, drilled holes in the ice, and replaced flags that had gotten faded and frayed in the intense sun and wind.

The trip was such a privilege. Flying over the continent and seeing mountains and glaciers completely untouched by human activity made me feel like I was inside a nature documentary.

The only part of the trip I didn’t enjoy was having to use a pee bottle with no shelter in zero-degree, 30-below windchill weather. When you do work in the “deep field” away from stations with plumbing or a camp with an an outhouse of some kind, you have to bring a pee bottle and use that!

All part of the Antarctica experience 🙂

Our ride.

Mount Erebus!

Fuel testing equipment and our gear.

Sea ice breaking up!

Fuel drums, marked with blue flags on bamboo poles. Only bamboo is strong enough to withstand Antarctica winds.

Becky and Ed testing fuel.

Flying over a glacier on the way back to McMurdo.

Everyone at McMurdo Station lives in dorms. Folks who work during the October-February “main body” season have at least one roommate.

My roommate, Gina, is a carpenter. She is awesome. When we don’t feel like being social, we knit and watch Miyazaki movies.

The last time I lived in a dorm, it was the one semester I went to UW-Eau Claire, when I was an awkward 18-year-old who had never lived away from Madison. Now, I’m an awkward 25-year-old with a full time job and a decent amount of experience living and working abroad, so dorm life feels much less intimidating and all-encompassing. I don’t spend a lot of time there when I’m not sleeping, mainly because it has 24/7 quiet hours (to accommodate night shift workers) and no Internet. Some of the dorms have lounges with Internet and regular social activities, but my dorm, dorm 201, does not.

Dorm 201. The little brown building next door is a smoking shelter. Since we’re on federal property, you can only smoke in designated areas.

Bunkbeds! I have the top bunk.

Decorations.

Our desk, covered in all my clutter, plus our sweet vintage telephone!

I made some crude but effective beanbag chairs.

Thick wool blanket over the window to keep the midnight sun out.

The last sunset was on October 23rd, a little more than a week after I arrived. Even then, it never got really dark, we would just have a few hours of twilight.

The next sunset will be on February 18th.

I was working day shift on October 23rd, and I’ll be on days in February as well. Comms operators switch between day shift and night shift every three weeks, and for the two periods that I will be on nights, I won’t see the more rapid light changes near the beginning and end of summer.

However, the light changes in subtle but beautiful ways even when the sun is just arcing gently across the sky. The ice, which is a headache-inducing bright white during the day, turns a softer blue-white in the middle of the night, when the sun is 20 degrees or so above the horizon. With the light blue of the sky and the Transantarctic Mountain range across the frozen sea, I have a gorgeous view during night shift.

There it goes! (one last time)

Sunset over the mountains.