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Pete’s Post from Antarctica - November 2005

By the time you read this I will be back home. I feel very privileged to have experienced the full four seasons here, but it has passed very quickly. The winter was definitely the best part, and anyone who only comes here during the summer is missing an amazing experience.

Our replacement crew arrived last week, and the population of the base has risen from 18 to 55 people. The “newbies” are all very excited about being here, and are constantly staring at the view out the window, or at the temperature gauges inside the base just like I was a year ago.

My handover to the new science technician has been completed, and I’ll fly back to Christchurch tomorrow. I have a few days of debriefing and then its home to Wellington. I’ll start back in my regular job two days later.

There are a few things that I will miss, and some that I won’t.

I won’t miss the smell the of the wastewater plant. All our sewage is treated in a biological plant very close to my lab, before being discharged into McMurdo Sound at a quality that is no worse than the background bacterial levels of the sea. Unfortunately, the “poo plant” doesn’t always cope well with changing population numbers on the base – particularly in summer. The vents from the poo plant are also very close to the fresh air intakes for the rest of the base. When the wind blows from the wrong direction…. well I guess you can imagine what its like.

I’m looking forward to having two-day weekends again, and not working on every single “day off”. We work whatever hours are required down here, and the daily weather observations still need to be done at 9am every day. I have to provide support for the computer systems, and people seem to have a lot of computer problems on Sundays.

I will miss the camaraderie of a team that works together to support each other. We were just like a big family, and I can honestly say that they have been a high-quality bunch of people to spend time with. We had lots of laughs, but most of all I was impressed with the competence of the base staff. Every one of them was good at their own job, but could also help with just about anything else that needed to be done.

One of the highlights was flying by helicopter to the Darwin Glacier to install a weather station. This remote and rarely visited area is 300km south of Scott Base, and will be the site of intensive science study in the next few years. We had about an hour of ground time to do our job, and had just completed it when the helicopter returned to pick us up.

The other highlight was being part of the Joint Antarctic Search And Rescue Team (JASART), and training with them every fortnight. We had a lot of fun, and I’ve made some very good friendships with the two other kiwis and the ten Americans on the team.

I’m looking forward to catching up with all my Alpine Club friends when I get back. Don’t ask me if I saw any polar bears – they’re only found in the Arctic.

My standard answer to the polar bear question is “Yes, there’s one behind every tree”.

Pete DeJoux