Monday 14th
January
From
John Storey.....
South
Pole at last!
 "Great
God, what an awesome place..." to paraphrase Robert Falcon
Scott, who never seemed to quite get into the spirit of South
Pole life. Duane and I arrived around noon, after an uneventful
three hour flight from McMurdo. This time there was plenty
of room to stretch out, with much of the plane's load capacity
taken up by a few very heavy items such as I-beams. Probably
if Scott had arrived in an LC130 like we did, he'd have been
more cheerful
too.
Tony
was very pleased to see us, and came out to meet the plane.
It is grey and overcast, that kind of "wrapped in cotton
wool" look that South Pole gets when there there is no
sun, no shadows, and no contrast. It's also unseasonably warm;
around -20 C, hardly cold enough to need a parka. Our welcome
orientation was in the form of a video - actually very informative.
This year we also had an orientation talk from the doctor,
who stressed the importance of drinking lots of water and
hardly any coffee, and taking lots of Diamox. The figures
he quotes are as follows - last season 10% of people took
Diamox, and three people had to go out as a medivacs (medical
evacuations) for altitude sickness, one in a pressurised oxygen
bag. This year, with 70% of South Pole folk taking Diamox
before arriving, there have so far been no medivacs. He then
passed around some packets of white tablets, and reminded
us we could collect more anytime from his surgery. When I
got to my bedroom I found another packet pinned to the wall
- there are more people pushing white tablets here than at
a rave party.
Once
we found our way into the galley I was relieved to find that
things haven't changed much in the two years since I was last
here. It's clear that South Pole will always be South Pole.
It's not just that they play Hendrix and Dylan and serve great
food and lots of it, but the whole atmosphere here is extraordinary.
Duane was stoked. It is an amazingly egalitarian society.
Nothing is locked, everyone takes what they need and contributes
what they can to the running of the station. Karl Marx would
be stoked, too. Indeed, South Pole Station is probably the
purest communist society that has ever existed - a grand socialist
experiment that, with delicious irony, is entirely funded
by the US government.
Duane
and I are sharing a room in the Elevated Dorm, AKA the "Beaker
Box". This is extraordinarily luxurious compared to the
Jamesways, the Korean-war era tents that offer the very minimum
of creature comforts. Tony is sleeping in a Jamesway. The
Beaker Box has its own bathroom and laundry facilities, an
ethernet, a kitchen and a TV lounge (with a video player,
the TV reception not being too good here).
The
impending arrival of our Stirling engine has created a surprising
amount of interest. Everyone seems to know about it, and wants
to know what it is and how it works and why "Stirling"
is spelt with an "i". As it turned out, it arrived
on the last flight tonight.
In
the afternoon we wandered out to the AASTO and re-familiarised
ourselves with the various issues. This year, for the first
time, there is a Jamesway set up 50 m or so from the AASTO
for use as a workshop. There is a fantastic amount of space,
and benches and places to put things and life couldn't be
better.
 
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