Condition One

The weather outside is frightful, which is making life for us as on duty firefighters delightful.

We've been having a pretty decent storm blow through today. Town is officially at condition two due to a lack of visibility, though it has been easily been dropping down to condition one (really bad) levels. At times, it's been getting hard to see the building next to us about thirty feet away. This is a little unusual for Mactown, as we tend to be fairly well protected by Ob hill from the blowing and drifting.

As a result of this less than superb weather, we've been staying in today. Aside from a few house chores, we're all just taking it easy. This has allowed me to come up with some time to actually post something.

Most of you may have thought I had abandoned you, but you'd be mistaken. A recent lack of technology and a serious lack of free time has delayed me in keeping you up to date with my Antarctic antics, but I shall hopefully make amends for that now.

After finally leaving Denver for orientation and training, we wandered our way down to New Zealand again. A short hop to Los Angeles, a 13.5 hour flight to Auckland, and another hour flight to Christchurch later, I was reunited with my old haunts in Cheech. Instead of staying in the Hotel So this time around, I went next door and enjoyed the significantly bigger rooms in the four star Grand Chancellor.

After settling in, the first order of business was to take a nap (which was readily achieved after my travels) and then to get a pint of Kilkenny over at the officially unofficial Ice bar Bailies.

My primary objectives for Christchurch accomplished, we proceeded to get on with work.

They did something a little different for us this year in Cheech. Normally we have a couple of days of training once we hit the Ice, but they tried to get it in to us before we left, so I had the honor of spending the morning over at the Clothing Distribution Center learning how to operate a forklift and finding a big red that fit.

Exciting, right?

Anyways, that completed, I spent a relatively quiet evening in Cheech hanging out and catching up with people.

We were supposed to fly the next morning, but due to a mechanical issue, our flight was canceled. We had already bag dragged, gotten in our ECW gear, and just about to go through the metal detectors when we saw our boomerang bags coming back on the pallet. A cheer erupted with the announcement of cancellation.

Getting canceled was not as much fun as it was last time. They had us strung along all day with two hour delays which meant that we couldn't wander too far from Cheech. Also, since we were making a later flight, it also meant that we didn't have hotel rooms anymore. All of this led to a lot of grumpy Americans sitting around in hotel lobbies.

After finally getting canceled, we received our new hotel accommodations. I was bumped over to the five star Crown Plaza. Life is tough sometimes.

Another night in Cheech later, we finally left.

Flying on a C-17 is still one of my favorite methods of travel. It's loud, cold, and spacious. I can deal with the first two quite easily and relish the third item.

Five hours later, we became the first flight to touch down on the Ice since March. As an item of note, we were also the first ever passenger flight to ever make a night vision goggle landing in Antarctica. The crews that were working stated that it was the eeriest thing seeing only pitch black and hearing the plane whoosh by and land.

Moving forward a bit, we went through another briefing and received our room assignments. Out of some strange, twisted bit of bureaucratic luck, I ended up in building 211. 211 is typically reserved for people with two or three years on the Ice, so I'm presently enjoying a large room that doesn't stay warm. Not bad as long as I remember to not use the shower on the end that forms ice in the bottom of the stall.

I also managed to end up with another firefighter as a roommate who is on the opposite shift. I basically have my own room again. Good deal.

Getting back on shift hasn't been that difficult. The crews over the winter have been small, and we're only making up for some of the losses due to the winter overs leaving. Hopefully this means we can skip out on having to go to day work and do "training" and just complete it during normal shifts.

We have been working a lot, though. Due to the Winfly flights, most of our off days are spent doing standbys at Pegasus airfield for about six hours. It really wears on you after about a week. With our current weather, though, we're getting a much appreciated break.

As a last note about the firehouse, is there anyone out there that wants to be chief? Ours is resigning and moving onto another job somewhere. While this leaves us a bit rudderless, I'm sure we'll keep to the fine Antarctic tradition of illogic and chaos.

That's it for now. Apologies to you all if it's a little rough as I'm just not motivated enough to proofread it. Maybe I'll get around to cleaning it up later.

Cheers,
Sunny Southern Guy


Addendum:

It's getting nasty out. I've almost been blown over more than a few times. The wind has literally sent me sliding on my heels across the ice. Opening doors is hazardous. They'll come swinging back at you and hard.

The Maineiac and myself had the honor of putting up the guide ropes. The guide ropes are placed up between buildings right before conditions officially go con one. It is not really a fun task stumbling through a blinding icy sandblaster to string ropes between buildings. The results consist of looking like a snow cone and having a dripping wet face from the snow melting on it.

We've also run two calls so far today. That's fairly impressive for us since we tend to average none.

The first was for an odor of smoke that turned out to have wafted away by the time we got there. Driving back was interesting since we literally couldn't see anything and the driver worked from memory to get around.

The second call of the evening was for a halon alarm over at VMF. I don't like halon. At all. Allow me to repeat this; I do not like halon.

Now that I'm clear on that subject, I'll explain. Halon is a wonderful though slightly antiquated fire suppressing agent. It works by being inert and displacing oxygen. It's also invisible and odorless, so it's a great candidate for knocking out firefighters.

So, after wandering around VMF and checking all four systems while on air, we finally figured out that it was a panel malfunction from the snow getting into it.

Picking up, I came back to the engine and tried to get in. A slight complication arose, however. The door had frozen shut. Funny how that works in Antarctica. So, I climbed into the other bucket with Kiwi Chris. It was a little tight in there, but it worked. Another blind ride back, we thawed out the wagon and got back to sitting.

Now to see if the bells keep ringing tonight. The heat detectors here are notorious for tripping in bad weather, so I may not sleep too much this night.

Back for More?

Due to popular demand, Sunny Southern Beach will publishing a new season of Antarctic exploits and antics.

The reason? I'm crazy enough to go back for more.

Just to help you fill in the gaps, I'll give a quick rundown of my life for the last few months.

After leaving the Ice, I went wandering through New Zealand for a couple of weeks. It was easily one of the best trips of my life. For anyone who thinks they'd like to visit NZ, I will gladly give you a thousand and one reasons why.

Following that, I came back stateside. After scrounging around a couple of months to find any kind of job, a friend of mine was able to get me a job selling and delivering HVAC equipment. As an amusing side note, the air conditioning in the store did not work, even though we had access to a large supply of parts and new units.

While I did have fun at that job and was learning new things, the money wasn't really there. I had been offered another contract to return to the Ice, and seeing little in the way of better options (along with a strong personal interest in returning), I decided to accept the offer and come back. I will be working again as a firefighter this year.

That pretty much brings everything up to date. I am currently sitting in my hotel room in Denver recovering from a long day at orientation (and a long night out on the town catching up with some old "A" shifters who live locally and aren't coming back)

Yesterday, we had our annual recertification burn for our Airport Rescue Firefighter training. Myself and seven other returnees ran through multiple scenarios with the aircraft crash simulator. Though we were a little bit rusty, we actually did pretty well, with only a few relatively minor things needed to improve on.

I was actually paid a fairly high compliment yesterday as well. During the first burn, I actually got to run the line. A fairly rare event for someone who has spent most of his time on a ladder truck. Anyway, one of the instructors mentioned at the end of the day that the guy running the pipe on the first burn made a very aggressive attack on the fire.

Not bad for someone who doesn't really do the hose thing that much. Also, amusingly enough, that instructor was also a truckie. I wonder if that detracts from the compliment? Anyway, I'm done tooting my own horn. For now.

If you're wondering why I seem to be leaving much earlier than last year, you're right. I'm coming down to the Ice for Winfly this year, about a full month and a half earlier than last time. I'll be on the first flight to McMurdo since early March, which will be interesting. I'm sure our sight will be a welcome relief to many of the winterovers who are starting to get a little crunchy.

Anyways, that pretty much fills you in up to right now. Tomorrow I have one more day of orientation training and then we fly out to New Zealand again. I have to get busy packing and getting ready to go again, so I'll end it here.

One last thing; it's been great hanging out with all my Ice friends again.