The WOIC is Winterover Officer In Charge.
It’s a touchy subject and I could probably fill several pages with the reasons I didn’t like or get along with him. However, in brief:
I didn’t get along with him because IMO he was a humourless bureaucrat that thought being in Antarctica was no different to working in an office back in the world. I wasn’t a scientist with a regular routine, I was the doghandler with a unique job and unique requirements, and my job didn’t start and stop according to some arbitrary schedule. As for being the “leader”, IMO he was completely irrelevant, other than reading out the latest missive from HQ.
To say that we didn’t get along would be the understatement of the year
The “real” leader that kept things going smoothly, was another guy that went by the moniker “The Lord”
He sorted the problems that should have been dealt with by the “official leader”.
To get work in Antarctica, the internet is the place to start. If your country has an Antarctic base, they will have a website, and all the info you need will be on it.
I just missed the dogs. They still had the area where they had been kept - they had not re-purposed it yet. Barry rings a bell… We were only at Scott Base for a few days - then headed out for 3 weeks at Cape Bird.
Ya - if you don’t get along with someone in charge, overwintering would be … Unpleasant to put it mildly.
I believe it is “Antarctic Support Associates”, which was the civilian company that hired and sent down all the non-navy, non-scientist support staff for the US bases.
Plus, there were a lot of Navy personel stationed at McMurdo when I was there - many of whom were black. The common wisdom was that since McMurdo counted as “ship time”, many of the people who were there were incredibly prone to seasickness. They kept putting them on larger and larger ships, until it was determined that the only place they could get “ship time” without throwing up was the Antarctic. Not sure about the veracity of this story though.
True. However, he didn’t come near me without a “backup” person after we had a couple of run ins, which is probably why I didn’t get to go back.
At least we had MacTown to go over to if it got too bad, while most of the other bases had nowhere to run to.
That we all got through winter without anyone punching another says something about employing professionals. Goodness knows, there were a few incidents that could have developed into something physical with less self control.
Yes, I had a couple of good buddies at McMurdo that were in the Navy. They told me that it was ship time. Long time ago, but I think it counted for extra ship time too, which was how they got enough volunteers. I didn’t envy them, as they were very restricted as to what they could do, while we at Scott were out skiing, which they were not allowed to do.
They weren’t even allowed to go out on the sea ice to look at penguins.
I went to a party at MacTown once, where they were venting their “displeasure” at the Navy officer in charge, and it was obvious that he was extremely unpopular.
(I hope the mods don’t mind…)
Here is a link to a thread (yes, on a different forum) by someone who worked in Antartica (much more recently than the OP). Twelve pages of very informative and interesting stuff, including pics.
Thanks for that link. He got more questions than I have, which may say something about me, or perhaps there aren’t a lot of people interested in Antarctica on this forum.
While I may have been there longer ago than most reading this will have been alive, the place doesn’t change, and most of the problems will be the same. Just the accomodation may have improved. That wouldn’t apply to the bedroom of the OP though, as I could have seen something like that back then, and intertestingly it looks like they still use the same Jamesway buildings that were around in 77.
Something different though is the condom situation. Condoms never even got mentioned, let alone having boxes of them available around the base, LOL.
The great advantage I had over him though, is that I was at Scott Base and we had dogs then.
Hi, new here, got some questions about Antarctica!
Comments please, on the Volkswagen Beetle that was used for a time on Antarctica back in the 1960’s
I’ve heard that there is one actual highway on Antarctica, from McMurdo to South Pole. Is this true? and how much of the time is it actually driveable?
I’ve read that there are a total of 41 bases on Antarctica, from all different countries. Do you sometimes talk via radio or internet, to people at some of the other countries’ stations?
a) How many members on this board are actually currently stationed on Antarctica? (March 2013)
b) How would I find currently stationed members on Facebook, or MySpace, or ???
c) Do you know of any station websites that allow the receipt of messages from non-station-personnel, to be received by various persons there, like a chatboard or mailboxes?
I just read an article about scuba diving in Antarctica, sounds amazing. How frequent is it that divers go there to dive or is it mostly people working there who happen to dive?
Never heard of it, but it is a big continent, and there were a few bases there in the 60’s Motorized transport on the continent dates back to Scott’s “motor sledges” which were not that useful.
No, not even a little true. From Mcmurdo, you’d travel on the Ross ice shelf, which is quite flat - a tracked vehicle could do it. Then you’d have to get up the Beardmore Glacier. This is a 160 km long glacier, going from sea level up to the Antarctic plateau (9800 feet ) It is full of huge crevasses, and is constantly shifting and changing every year, since it is flowing ice. Then you’d have to make your way across the ice of the plateau.
We interacted with folks from an Italian base, but their visit was coordinated through various levels of government. They did not just “drop by” and our field party only communicated with our main base. There was lots of back-and-forth between McMurdo and Scott base, since they are very close together. I’m not sure what it’s like on the Penninsula, where the bases can be in relatively close proximity.
I would be surprised to find ANYONE active here who is currently in Antarctica.
Here’s a facebook page for Mcmurdo. You could try searching for the other Antarctic bases by name.
)Note - this applies to the Ross Sea area. Things may be different at other stations on the Antarctic penninsula which is quite literally a continent away)
Researchers regularly conduct dives under the ice. They have special safety equipment, and heated suits. Research purposes is the only way to do this - when I was there, even though I was a diver, I would never have been allowed to dive “for fun”.
The only “tourists” who are in the Ross Sea area are on cruise ships, and are not (as far as I know) able to dive.
On that facebook page, there apparently IS a sort of a “highway”. between the pole and Mcmurdo. It’s called the South pole traverse, and was created by filling in crevasses and smoothing out the ice and snow. Looks like it was completed in the 2005/06 season, well after I was there.
A couple of my friends are in Antarctica right now. They’re winter-overs at the South Pole station. I don’t think either of them has an account here though… They’re both on Facebook a lot but I don’t know that they’ve got a specific place online for members of the public to contact them.
There are 44 people stationed there this winter so it’s possible that someone might be a member here, too. And McMurdo has a ton of people so it’s more likely one of them is here.
Oh, and as for contacting other bases… We emailed Christmas cards between the stations and (I was not involved in this) but there was a session of singing Christmas carols over the radio to each other.
Thanks for your response Euphonious so I guess I’ll keep on planning for an arctic dive expedition. I was really surprised when I read the article I hadn’t even crossed my mind to dive there.
Haven’t been checking this much since the interest dies off, so apologies for late reply.
It would only be people that work there. The equipment required is far too expensive for recreational use. The water is at about 1 C and you would die quickly from the cold in a wet suit.
I did have a dog fall in the water once, and lacking resources to warm it up, just kept the sledge moving so it would keep warm through exertion. It didn’t die, but huskies can run for hours, unlike humans.
