Ahhhh Rothera. The British bases are so civilized.
After 4 hours of sleep, I get up at 7am, gear up in full Antarctic
regalia and get swung over to shore by the crane on the personnel
basket with a dozen others on shore leave. Then the Gould takes
on a load of Brits and takes off to do science for the day.
This leaves me and some other fortunate day trippers at the
mercy of the British Antarctic Survey team till midnight.
It starts out simple enough. Have some tea. Tour
the facilities. Have some more tea. See the new bunkhouse, the
control tower, the massive collection of dog sleds. Sadly though,
no dogs. All sleds are pulled by snowmobile or people now. Dogs
were banned by the Antarctic Treaty as a "non-native species"
and had to get shipped out in '84 or something. They still have
a huge sled dog family tree covering 10 generations and a hundred
or so litters of sled dog pups born on the base hanging on the
wall. Then we wandered around the point to see seals and penguins.
Had some more tea. The British have the best bases down here.
Rothera is a hundred or so miles south of Palmer Station, but
while Palmer is on a tiny spit of land blocked off by a glacier,
Rothera is on a wide peninsula, big enough for a runway and
a ski slope and a broad deep water pier. Lots off room to move
around. The British got to Antarctica first, did detailed surveys
of the whole place, then picked out the 3 or 4 best spots for
their bases leaving the rest rest of the world with the leftovers.
No planes flew in while we were there but they have something
like 20 field teams out during the summer that they support,
and a network of fuel dumps and ice runways all the way to the
South Pole that allow them to fly almost anywhere on the continent.
The British are serious about their exploring.
Then there was a big soccer game out on the runway
between the Americans and everyone else. Everyone was running
around like crazy with giant Sorrel boots on a gravel playing
field with icebergs in the water on one side and the airplane
hanger on the other.
We were ahead on points but we had 15 players
to their 8 so maybe it wasn't quite fair. Then more tea, followed
by a BBQ on the deck with British style kabobs and burgers (grilled
till solid with a nice flaky carbonized black glaze). Then they
break out the beer, Ahhh luxury. Newcastle, Samuel Smiths Oatmeal
Stout, Blackthorne Hard Cider, and of course Guinness.
No need to eat with such nectar around.
Then they fired up the house band in the gear shed (high enough
ceiling to hang out tents and sleeping bags and such) who concentrated
on crowd pleasing numbers like "Layla", "Rebel, Rebel", "Smells
Like Teen Spirit" and that WOOOOO WOO song that the kids love.
There was dancing till midnight, as only a base full of people
on 18 month deployments who have just had their female population
quintupled can party.
There were 3 women on the winter over crew here,
and you can tell they were a hit not only because the three
generators in the power shed are now named after them, but because
they produced and posed for a "Girls of Rothera" calendar which
is hanging prominently in the Pub. No "actual" nudity mind you,
but the ladies were draped seductively across heavy bulldozers
in the garage or waving from the catwalk around the control
tower or reclining on the ping-pong table in the rec room with
only ping- pong paddles covering their bumpy bits. The ships
crew tried in vain to trade for this one and only edition of
the calendar, offering everything from cases of fresh fruit
(which they haven't seen in months) to cartons of cigarettes
(which are running perilously low) to cold hard cash to no avail.
At last we started headed back to the Gould, and
headed back out to deep water. Science work starts again in
4 hours. More CTD's. Wheeeee.
Andy
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