Life on Station

It’s amazing how normal things become, how quickly you adapt. That’s not to say you lose the wonder of a place, but elements of day to day life do become routine. It’s certainly a strange mix of the surreal and the relatively mundane – standing at the washing up sink battling piles of baked on lasagne dishes whilst watching icebergs, penguins, and elephant seals out of the window. This mix can actually bring about a degree of internal confusion, especially when you throw in the perception of outsiders, their reactions to photos posted online etc. These pictures can in some ways be deceiving – not deceiving of its beauty, but deceptive when it comes to other realities. Even in such an incredibly stunning place a person is still subject to the usual human emotions, the highs and the lows, the bad days and the good. In many ways the extreme nature of Antarctica brings these things more sharply into focus. On the whole my experience here so far has been overwhelmingly positive; BAS are a fantastic organisation to work for, and I’ve met so many incredible, lovely people. Life here is not without its challenges though, and without a doubt (for me at least) the greatest of these is the highly concentrated social living. Interestingly though, this is also one of the best things about it – community and people are integral to the entire experience. Nothing could exist without it, and this extends much further than the confines of the station. You rely much more on others, but you also come to rely much more upon yourself. Living in this kind of environment requires a great deal of self-awareness – it’s really not easy at times and it can seem quite a struggle not to lose yourself a bit. But these are the moments, if you can hold onto what you deem to be important - those things are strengthened more than might be possible elsewhere. The people you work with are also the people you live with, and there’s nowhere else to go but here. There’s not a lot that goes unnoticed, and everything you say and do will inevitably have quite an impact. It’s so important to try and constantly be aware of this, to be mindful of others, but also not to fall into the easy trap of overthinking everything too much. Despite, and possibly because of all of this it’s an absolutely fascinating place to spend some time.

You might find yourself sat around at breakfast chatting to Canadian pilots of Chinese planes – stopping off at Rothera for a night on the way to the pole. I later asked some of our pilots if they’d ever been there, what it’s like, is it difficult to land, etc. They described it as the Heathrow of Antarctica, or probably JFK as it’s run by the Americans. These folk are great to chat to, the little things, the big things – there are even a few who were here in the last days of the dog teams. This is just a three month spell for me, but for many it has been their life. These stories are everything – it’s pretty much the entirety of the culture and human history of this place. I’m not even sure it can claim a culture of its own; the only continent on earth not able to support permanent human inhabitants. It does have plenty of its own peculiarities though, and plenty of different characters.

There is certainly not a shortage of reminders that life down here is a little different. Next to one of the phones is a telephone doodle book, and on the inside front cover is scribbled the mobile number of Elvis Presley’s eldest son. There is also a poster on the wall kindly reminding people not to chew the telephone cable because replacements are hard to come by in Antarctica. In one of the accommodation block there is the ‘Sledge of Dreams’. This is a big old fashioned sledge where people can leave things they no longer require, and it’s free for anyone else to help themselves. Some of the more random objects I’ve seen on there are a framed photograph of Dermot O’Leary, and a cuddly Cornish Pasty. I guess we all must miss slightly different things when in Antarctica. I can’t say that this was near the top of my list, but one of my friends sent me out a Lake District bus timetable in case I was feeling a bit homesick. It did cause a fair bit of mild amusement though, and Ernie even asked me to check if there was still a bus running from Glenridding to Keswick. He then proceeded to tell me the story of how he’d taken that bus once, that the route was on very windy roads, and that by the end of it he felt quite sick. Ernie is definitely one of those folk about whom it would be easy to fill an entire blog post – someone that brightens many a day. There are people from all different walks of life here; chefs, mechanics, sparkies, plumbers, scientists, plant operators (some who back home are farmers – and very passionate about what they do). I’ve been told that at Sky Blu (one of our field stations), pictures of bikini clad women have actually been replaced by photos of favourite tractors. There’s also a number of different nationalities represented here; French, Dutch, Canadian, American, New Zealand (or Australian, depending on how much you want to wind Cameron up). Cam is down here as a vehicle mech, and never fails to entertain with his stories and turn of phrase. He even has his own weather measuring system – as he walked into the dining room one morning he declared, “It’s blowing 40 bastards out there!” He was also conducting an interesting survey the other day, asking people if they prefer to do it with or without their socks on.

All the accommodation here is shared; either 2 bedded or 4 bedded rooms. There are not many people in the world who are aware of the use of Crocs as a ‘vacuum cleaner’ (particularly efficient at shuffling up hair). So when Rachel and I were sat in our room (within the first week) enthusiastically discussing this shared knowledge, our relationship was only ever going to go one way. We often go on ‘dates’ around the point, and the Station Leader (Jess) was asking what the female equivalent of a bromance is. It’s hard not to love someone who leaves random notes, makes you a cotton mouse out of a tampon, and mixes up your Rubik Cube so that you can solve it again. Rachel also gave me my Rothera nickname – Nails. It stems from my love of running in slightly ‘interesting’ conditions, mostly on the runway when it’s a little breezy out. I’m not really sure what I bring to the relationship, but I did show Rachel the gravel rash near my bum from falling over when playing football. No one else got to see that, although Hannah did say that she’d like to – in exchange for some peppermint teabags. It’s amazing what passes as currency in a place without any money!