The Whole Wide World

Tuesday. On Tuesday mornings, I go into work earlier for what is called beverage pull or bev pull for short. So no gym on Tuesdays, because I am not getting up any earlier than I already do. Instead I have a yoga mat in my room and I do my little routine there and get a walk in either during the middle of the day or later in the evening.

Beverage pull is actually kind of fun, relatively speaking. I think I enjoy the physical aspect of it, much more so than sitting at a desk. On Sunday evenings, I submit an order to our supply team for all the beverages to be sold in the bar and the store that week and on Tuesday mornings our supply team show up to the back dock of the store with a loader and sled full of beverages. With the help of a couple lovely volunteers, we unload and count everything that belongs in the store and then we all meet over at the pub and do the same thing there. While I like the physical aspect of bev pull, in the beginning my back did not. With the help of a foam roller and a new yoga ball for an office chair my back is happy once again.

Today I opted for a midday walk and after the store closed at 2PM, I ventured over to Hut Point. Hut Point is on the edge of town and home to Discovery Hut, which was built by Robert Falcon Scott during the Discovery Expedition of 1901-1904. During the summer season, I went on a tour of the hut which still has lots of artifacts from Scott’s time there. There is even seal blubber from over a century ago. I haven’t put photos from that tour on Instagram yet, but will do so in the next couple months. 

The photo above is from today’s walk. While it looks like it is still quite light out, it’s not really that light at all, especially in town. There is more light standing at Hut Point, but there are hills that block what little light still shines from reaching McMurdo, where the station is. The view from Hut Point never disappoints. In the summer months you can see the Royal Society Range of the Transantarctic Mountains across the sea and they absolutely majestic. It was -38 with the windchill today, so I was bundled up. Without the windchill, the temperature has been around zero for the past couple days. The wind really is brutal here. It is mind boggling to me that when I go outside now, anything around zero feels warm. Obviously, that is relatively speaking, but I have definitely adapted. I am slightly concerned about how hot it is going to feel when I return to the non frozen world. 

I haven’t seen any auroras yet, but I am hopeful that I will get my fair share over the next few months. That was one of the key parts of my decision to stay for the winter. Everyone on the station has a pager over the winter, we are so bringing the 90’s back. Since there is no cell service, the pagers are vital for communicating with each other. We also use them for fun things too. I am on a 24/7 aurora alert pager list so when someone calls in an aurora sighting, I’ll get a page. It is unfortunate that the station itself has a lot of light pollution, especially compared to our Kiwi neighbors at Scott Base, but there will be a couple times where the station manager calls for a dark sky day and all the outdoor lights will get switched off. I am really looking forward to that. 

After my walk, I went back to work for a couple hours before heading to dinner and then back to the store again to open up for to the community for the evening hour. On Tuesday evenings, I head to The Chapel of the Snows, which is McMurdo’s very adorable non-denominational church. In the summer season it is a great spot to stay cozy and stare out onto the ice with a pair of binoculars for penguin and whale spotting. On Tuesday evenings throughout both summer and winter it is home to Antarctic AA meetings. I’ve been attending AA meetings ever since I begin my sobriety journey over almost six and a half years ago, but more on that another time.