I hope that you enjoy my story, and I would love feedback, but please not with a fake email address. If it is worth saying, good or bad, own it and let me respond. Please enjoy xx Mica
We had a week of briefings and introductory sessions in Cambridge, and then on to the airport at Brize Norton. It had been a pretty awful journey, England to Ascension, then Ascension to Port Stanley and finally onto Rothera. If we hadn't had such poor relations with Argentina we could have flown in luxury to South America, but HMG decided on our safer passage route with the RAF. Finally, we were here. Antarctica for our three months stay. Dad is a scientist and is doing some work with ice cores, me, I am no freeloader, I am going to work supporting their heavy machine shop. I am a certified diesel technician and I know my way around the big Cats and will be maintaining the fleet. What an opportunity.
Whilst we were at Port Stanley they gave us some Antarctic wear, nothing we could buy in England would be good enough, and they equipped us with unbelievably warm coats with hoods, trousers, boots, mittens etc. We thought we had done well with what we had bought, but what we had bought were like summer rain wear in comparison. "Don't wear the coat on the plane," they said, "wait till you land, make sure you have it on before they open the doors."
We were lucky, it was only minus 5ΛC when we landed. "It can be minus 55," the pilot cheerfully told us as he did his post landing briefing. "Head straight to the building over there at your eleven o'clock, you will be met and briefed properly there."
The plane door was opened and the steps let down. The cold air rushed into the plane. 'Christ above, that is cold,' I thought. There were seven of us passengers on the plane and we all filed out, grabbing our luggage and heading over the surprisingly bare ground to the door that they had pointed out. Dad and I sort of lagged behind, letting the seasoned travellers that had been before lead the way.
"Good morning," a chap in T shirt and shorts said. He had bare feet too. What?
"Welcome to you all, some familiar faces and some new. First rule, you do not go out of any building unless you take a tracker and enter the details on the board next to the door. You must not, ever, break that rule. There is no search and rescue here, it is usually search and recover. It can get to minus fifty five out there, and that will kill you in minutes. There might be bare ground out there, but tomorrow that could be two feet thick snow. Make no mistake, Antarctica will kill the unwary and careless."
"Right," he continued, "scared? Good. Now. No need to be. Inside the buildings it is always over twenty degrees and most of us walk round in shorts and tops. It is relaxed inside the buildings. No, we don't have a swimming pool or hot tub, we don't want to add those chemicals to the environment, but we do have mess areas, an Odeon cinema room, lounger rooms with recliners, a quiet room, a faith room, and a quiet room with a landline where you can just pick up and dial and talk to anyone anywhere. There are a few Gyms and work out rooms dotted about too. Our chef here does not have a Michelin star but we have awarded him a Two Penguin status. The food he conjures up is frankly amazing. Now, please look to the table on the left, there you will find your room allocations. Mikhail and Mica, hang around after and I will go through your allocation, okay? Right then. The rest of today is pretty free for you, but work starts at 0800 tomorrow and we are in permanent light at the moment, so make sure you take the opportunity to work out how you get to your work place. Mica, the engineering shop is on the far side of station, but you can get to it entirely indoors with the snow corridors, but, make sure you take your outdoor gear with you."
"Okay then everyone. I have been Bill, welcome, enjoy your stay, and well, that's it." There was a ripple of applause and thanks, and we were done. We let the others go and grab their allocations and we walked up to Bill.
"Hello Bill, I am Mikhail, this is my daughter Mica."
"Great, pleased to meet you and I hope you have a great three months and hope that you decide to come back again. Now then. Your room."
"Yes?" Dad answered.
"We had a bit of an issue, we did have two singles assigned, but there was a technical problem with those rooms, and they are unusable. Now space is obviously at a bit of a premium, and most rooms are multiple occupancy. We have assigned you what we call a family room. It is a bit cosy, little personal space, but pretty much all we have. Is that going to be an issue? Only I am not sure what the alternative we could offer you is. The bonus is that it has its own private bathroom, most of the others have a shared bathroom."
Dad looked at me. I shrugged.
"I am sure it will be fine, it's not as if we don't know each other," I said, "thank you Bill, we don't really want to be any trouble."
Dad nodded, "exactly," he agreed.
"Oh good. Right well, your allocation is over on the desk and there are building maps and direction signs everywhere. I really do recommend that you take the afternoon to find your way around so that you won't be late in the morning. When you're hungry, just head off to Mess and grab something. There is nearly always something hot available."
"Thanks Bill," dad said.
We went across to the table. 'Blue Fam" dad read of the allocation, "and it looks like it is that way," pointing to one of the doors that exited our arrivals room.
"Right dad, come on, let's go and dump our stuff and have a look around, and I can't wait to get these bloody outdoor clothes off, I am so hot."
We followed the signs on the corridors and found our room opened the door and went in. Well, this was cosy.
"This is tiny Mica," dad said, and he was not wrong. The room held a double bed, a chair, a dressing table, a wardrobe and there was a door off. Through that door was a bathroom with shower, basin and loo.
"Well, I can see why Bill might have been concerned. There is only one bed."
"Dad, it'll be fine, it's wide enough. Come on, let's drop our bags and have a wander."
"Door doesn't seem to lock baby."
"I don't imagine theft is much of an issue here. There is a deadlock on the inside, so we can lock ourselves in, dad, don't worry."
We shut the door behind us and headed off for a look see. The place was a bit of a maze and it took a while to get my bearings. But I think I had it sussed, and whilst it was a good fifteen minute walk through the snow corridors, it was straight forward run to the machine shops where I would be working. It was a lot cooler in the workshops, probably due to the huge roll up doors for getting the equipment in and out.
There was a Cat 11 dozer in the shop, and the engine looked partially disassembled. I guessed I would find out the situation in the morning. I was quite looking forward to working on the beast. A quarter of a million pounds worth of extreme engineering. I did know that the ones in use here were rugged winterised and had most of the emissions stuff deleted, sensors didn't tend to work well in extreme cold. That pleased me, it made them more straight forward to work on.
The labs, where dad would be, were on the other side of the station to me and we went there next. They had a pass activated entry, so, we went and found the pass room and dad got his pass issued and authorised.
In the mess I got a chicken carbonara and dad had a steak with pepper sauce. They were really excellent; they certainly had a good chef and kitchen team in place. There were just a few occupied tables, I guessed there were busy and quiet times, probably coinciding with end of work shifts, and we had happened upon a quiet time.
We went back to our room and opened up and walked in, dad dropped the latch behind us. On the bed were two keys and a note. 'You can lock the door if you want, here is a key each. A master copy is held in the admin office. Most people don't tend to lock, hope the room is ok. PP Bill'
I opened the outer door and had another closer look, and yes, there was a small key hole, neither dad or I had noticed it. Oh well. I went back in and relocked the door, dad had stripped down to his pants.
"Are you tired dad? That journey has left me a bit bushed."
"It is a bit of a killer, but my God, look where we are, I mean, end of the world."
"I know. Pity we haven't got a window."