The Night Carte

An irregular collection of Scott Base doings for June 1998  

Photo By Eric Trip. June 1998 A daytime photo of the Bar entry to Scott Base, Smoker's Hut and Q-Hut in the background

Welcome to the midwinter edition of The Nite Carte. It's hard to believe that we've past the winter solstice and are on our two month journey back to the sun. In the meantime here's what your friend/family has been doing on ice.

The P-Party must go on.

No, the author doesn't have a s-stutter, we had a party at Scott Base where everyone had to come as something beginning with 'P'.

We had a Bigfoot Podiatrist, a couple of Priests, a Poor Pauper, a few people arrived Pregnant (notice we weren't gender selective) and had to beware of the One Eyed Purple People Eater. Lots of Pajamas, a Reese's Peanut Butter cup, literally a couple of Pediatricians with their Pals. The Party Pooper and his Particularly Pleasant Partner played along, not to mention (but we will) a Potato, the Pirates and some Punk from Scott Base being watched by a not-so-P.C. Plod. There was a certain animal charm to the Prehistoric Babe which was missing altogether in one of the two Pippi Longstockings with their peculiar pigtails.

The 'Friends of Mitch Perry' provided the pulse to dance to and people's palettes were pleased with Pauline's produce.

Party patrons were pleasantly plied by the trusty Scott Base Publicans. All in all it was a p-pretty g-good P-Party.

Another cold dark Saturday

At one time or another we have all risen to face a new day, knowing there is a function to go to or someone coming to dinner and we just don't feel up to it. Well imagine waking to another dark cold Saturday morning, you've been feeling off colour for the past couple of days and the thought hits you that you have 82 people for dinner at 8.00 pm.

Welcome to Mid-Winters Day Pauline!

After a quick bite of breakfast the fun begins. Luckily she has a willing, if not entirely competent, group of helpers. Herm and Helen take the early shift getting frozen thingies ready for transformation into gourmet foodie bits. But first there is morning tea and lunch to organize for the team of workers (Dave and Ray) who spend the morning clearing away the snow that has built up during a week of storms.

Halfway through the morning Mike and Mork arrive with the food breakout from the hangar (some of which is to be used immediately, the rest for stocking up depleted shelves) and pile it in the storeroom, rather untidily I must say! Guilt obviously kicks in, as they come back to stack it away properly.

It's after lunch that the action really picks up. Patrick, the American chef, arrives on an exchange visit to help feed his fellow countrymen. He starts on the superb deserts and stuffing the turkeys. Pauline sorts Herm out cutting fish into bite size portions, Mork peeling carrots and potatoes with Geoff dicing them into the required shapes. Helen and Johno amicably set out the mess with seating for all 82 people, finding tables and chairs from any number of places around the Base.

Tables set and people enjoying pre-dinner drinks  

Mike and Steve disappear over the hill to the Town meeting, Dave delivers a birthday cake to some friends of the base at the A-frame, Chris and Ray start cutting a hole in the Ice for the "Polar Plunge" on Sunday and Eric's getting stuff ready for the Government House video linkup. After some of the other more essential jobs are done, all the tables and chairs, which are carefully stored around Scott Base in the winter, are brought out of hidding and deposited into the dinning room. When all the other various tasks have been completed we all congregate in the dinning room to finish off the necessary jobs that aren't always seen e.g. washing all the dishes, folding napkins, stocking the bar, etc.

Through all this Pauline remains calm and collected. She disappears occasionally for a smoke and coffee or has she found a padded sound proof cell to work out the frustrations?

The tempo picks up as the afternoon draws to a close and evening is rapidly upon her. As the first guests are walking through the door she is busy finishing the desert decorations, showing Herm, Johno and Mork how to make hors d'ouvres look edible without getting the toppings all over themselves, checking the two giant turkeys and ten legs of lamb are all cooked to perfection.

At 7.15 she sends the help off to the showers because "you stink". They arrive back much refreshed and somewhat tidier. With a flurry of instructions Johno becomes an expert at making Caesar salad. Mork gets the scoop on the veges, i.e. when they are to be cooked and for how long, as well as about twenty other seemingly unimportant details. Helen, looking radiant in her long dress, is busy distributing the hors d'ouvres to the assembled masses. Patrick (the American) wanders about doing his thing totally nonplussed, as he does this every day.

With a thinly veiled warning to the Circus Clowns Bingo and Dingo of "don't cock it up", Pauline and Herm disappear off to the showers. Someone (possibly one of the above) mistakenly turns off the steamer meaning dinner will be a few minutes tardy. At 8.01 - it's fashionable to be late - Pauline and Herm arrive looking as if they have come from the beauty salon ready for a fashion shoot. And all it took was 15 minutes! Everybody is seated, Dave's ready to carve, Eric says grace and the stampede for another superb feast of Kiwi cuisine begins.

Sure enough it was a team effort and everyone pitched in, but without Pauline's superb culinary and organizational skills, Mid-Winter's Day would have been just another cold dark Saturday here on the Ice. Eighty-one people agree we are lucky to have you here - "Good on ya mate!"

Midwinter Moves

T'was a busy weekend around Midwinter at Scott Base. Preparations had been going on in various parts of the base for the activities surrounding the winter solstice. The activities themselves comprised a formidable timetable.

The premier event is the Midwinter Dinner. We thought we had a lot of people here for Sunset Dinner but we max'ed out on the big occasion. Seventy guests from McMurdo were ferried across to the base in time for pre-dinner drinks and hors d'ourves. The evening was relaxed and people moved into the dining room in small groups around 8pm.

The main meal provided an excellent balance of dishes (something from all the right food colours): roast turkey and stuffing, roast lamb with mint sauce, goulash, Caesar salad, cold sliced ham off the bone, sushi, roast potatoes, kumara, carrots and minted peas.

As people helped themselves to dessert (pavlova, trifle, chocolate roulade with raspberry puree) and coffee, small groups gathered at the candlelit tables while others adjourned to the bar for a few drinks, a bit of pool and a little dancing.

The next morning, the clean up didn't take too long and the bulk of the base was off into the briny for a wee dip. We had programmed a sprint, swim and swill event in which participants ran over from McMurdo, did the Polar Plunge and then had a drink in the bar. Due to the weather getting the wind up, it turned into a sprint, play cards while sipping drinks and coffee and wait for the Shuttles to start ferrying people again.

Meanwhile, back in the Lab, we were getting ready for a video conference with Government House. In fact, like most things, we had been getting ready for it for quite some time... there was equipment that needed to be installed, circuits that needed testing and people who needed to come up to speed with just what a computer can do with video information. It all came together quite nicely on the day.

So, we got to watch people in NZ and they got to watch us, all while listening to speeches and answering questions on a handsfree phone. There were times when we weren't too sure just what was going on (like from about 3 minutes before the conference to after the speeches) but at least we swayed at the right times and waved our balloons... which goes to show just how much fun we really can have down here!

Bowling

The penultimate game of the winter league first round saw Scott Base lose. In a lacklustre game, the team were bowling below average.

Scotty’s Strikers broke the 550 team score barrier in the last game of the winter league first round. While Geoff and Mike bowled their averages, Dave and Eric came on form posting 157 and 199 respectively. Having struck twice in the last frame, Eric needed 8 from the last ball to hit 200 but three pins remained standing as the smoke cleared.

Eric lines up another strike (who wrote this caption?)

The second league of the winter began after a week's pause but that did nothing for the ability of the Scott Base team to win. The big burly guys with moustaches managed a copycat 75 each in the first game, while ET plugged 161 and Geoff scored well with 118.

For the first few frames in the last game of the month it looked as though we had really struck gold but scores tailed off in the end to see us lose by 9. Johno did his part though, with a League II debut score of 135.

Hockey with a Twist

The Scott Base players have been developing well over the winter. After scoring two goals on 9 May, Helen was feeling on top of things when a twist occurred in this tale. She rolled her ankle which left her limping around the base for the next week.

The clash of hockey and bowling on Tuesday nights sometimes limits the numbers to the stick game due to Fire Crew constraints. Interest is high within the team however, and some have mentioned getting Sky TV so they can continue to watch the Ice Hockey when they get home.

The Gym at McMurdo is being refurbished so the team hasn't been playing of late. It's been mooted, however, that a Hockey Championship will be played for the Nigel Cup as soon as the floor is ready!

The Nigel Cup

At the start of winter we were invited to play indoor hockey over the hill in McMurdo. Well, we got hooked on the game. Our emergence as an hockey playing base coincided with the finals of the Stanley Cup Ice Hockey competition in the U.S.A. We got hooked on that style of game as well, by viewing the tapes kindly supplied by our neighbours.

Where does all this lead? The answer is simple. We think we have improved enough in our play to challenge the Americans in a bid to see who is the superior hockey playing country on Ross Island. So on July 5th of this year we are scheduled to play a series of three games, first to ten (winner by two) to decide what we already know, that is, we are the better team!

There has been a flow of e-mails between bases to sort out the rules and conditions of play. We, being the initiators of the competition, have got our way in all things (is that because we have three women on our team?). The only problem at present is that the gym floor is being painted and it is doubtful it will be ready in time, but we think this could be a ploy to limit our matchplay before the big day.

Just how did the Cup become to be called Nigel? It's a bit of Kiwi humour lost on the Americans! (or maybe it's named after Stanley's brother!)

Volleyball

Scott Base lost the first game of the month to the Wham Bams. We never really found form, tending to put out fires rather than control the ball on our side of the net.

The 4th World Whammers didn't turn up for game two of the month, but then neither did we, but they were going to, while we couldn't make the numbers, so in the end they got it by default.

Team ? didn't turn up for the game on the 19th so it was another game by default for Scott Base. Maybe we should spend less time on skills and more time on terror!

Darts

Scott Base won two games in the first biff of the month. South Pole made their apologies before disappearing from the HF spectrum leaving Davis, Casey and Scott to sort it out. Davis took the first game as we bottlenecked on the double to finish. Having got a win for the night (which was enough for them) they left Casey and Scott Base to shoot out the final games.

The second game of the month saw South Pole take the honours in the first, Davis in the second and then the ionosphere took the third as HF comms became unusable and we all went home. Pappi was the only guy fronting up from McMurdo so we made him an honourary Scott Base team member... now if only we could get him to speak English.

Sunglasses

This past month, happenings in the motel complex have been many and not really varied.

Johno has been erecting his space age looking ducting in the upstairs area, now that the painting there is finished. The material is a flash silver foil covered insulation and even the Star Trek fans among you would be in awe, especially with all the twists and turns.

Combine this very reflective substance with Ray's lighting fixtures for the study area and you need sunglasses to enter the room. If the light tubes were a different sort we'd be able to set a record as the most tanned winter crew!

Meanwhile, the downstairs area is rapidly approaching the stage when paint tins start appearing. All doors to the different rooms are fitted. The finishing touches of skirting and architraves, beads, etc. are sprouting up everywhere. We can even see out the windows which would be good if it wasn't so dark.

In fact, when looking down the corridor, the scene reminds me of the cells in Christchurch Central Police Station - but that's another story.

Next month there should not be an update on progress because by that time we will be waiting for Winfly flights to bring us the remaining materials: beds, joinery and carpets. Until then there are a lot of videos to watch, pool to play, places to see and possibly some more work if they can find us.

Picturesque Corridor

As well as managing the base, the Q-Hut refit and doing miscellaneous carpentry, Steve has been doing a bit of redecorating. The corridor outside the Mess and Bar was in need of paint and paper after being stripped during the summer.

The doors and frames were sanded, etch primed and painted white, giving the place the feeling of a hospital. The pale mauve ceiling and peach papered walls add a bit of colour.

A feature of the corridor is the photos of winter over crews since 1967. The pictures were remounted on the first weekend of the month and give a sense of history to the base. Progressing from left to right takes you through the characters of the past thirty years. For those of us who are reruns, it’s a touch of nostalgia.

Working on the Pipe Gang

Some guys work on the chain gang but Mike ‘Z’ has been working on the pipe gang. Crawling and sliding under the floor, he has installed the new 50mm water pipe to feed the sprinkler system in Q-Hut. Mike ran about 100m of pipe in cramped conditions as well as installing a pump part way along. With the weight of water in the pipe, it needed to be secured at regular intervals which can be trying at times in the confined space.

Because of the double skin nature of Scott Base's construction, there is a 500mm cavity under the floor. All the base services such as communications, electrical, sewerage and water make use of this area. Unfortunately this space is punctuated with steel girders at 4m intervals, forcing workers to go to a new personhole to access the next section of under floor space. This inconvenience may account for the efforts of certain base staff to get into trim!

The pipeline will allow the sprinkler system in Q-Hut to draw off the 144,000 litre water storage tanks behind the base.

Bit of a Drag

The vehicle Mike took ‘the long way home’ in last month, was dragged up from its resting place. Looking somewhat the worse for wear, T1 was hoisted back up onto the road using the winch on a D8 bulldozer. The Americans provided the heavy equipment and lighting plant to enable the salvage operation to take place and had the vehicle back up on the road in a couple of hours.

A front end loader was then used to transport the wreck back to Scott Base. Quite a few of the Base Staff were ready with their cameras to record the homecoming. Although there wasn’t a straight panel on the vehicle, it looked surprisingly intact and it looks as though several parts could be salvaged. The vehicle went off the road during a storm last month while being driven back to Scott Base. It dropped off the road about 100m and had rolled half a dozen times according to Mike ‘Z’. Mike came away with only a scratch to the head and a sore shoulder.

Scott Base People

Hi there everyone, I'm Helen Ryrie and I have the great honour of cleaning Scott Base.

I was born and raised in Hamilton. Much to my mother's delight, she had 3 lovely girls, me being the youngest. Growing up we spent many happy weekends at our Grandparents' home in Raglan. Most of the time was spent water skiing and trying to out- run, ski, talk and swim our close cousins.

After completing my sixth form year I decided I had had enough school work and it was time to play. I was employed by Trust Bank Waikato for 4 years. During that time I held various positions in the bank. The one position I enjoyed the most was that of a relief teller. I would travel all around the Waikato not knowing from day to day where I would end up working. After my promotion to a Branch Supervisor I realised that I was not really cut out for office work. In 1990 I succumbed to the call of the great outdoors. Along with my sister Sue, we packed up, said a tearful farewell to Mum and headed south to a quiet, sleepy little town in the middle of nowhere called... Queenstown!

Wow, did we have a great time. We both got jobs working for Mt Cook Line at Coronet Peak Skifield. That winter would have to be the starting point of my 'Outdoor Life Style'. After a fun winter skiing, I headed off to Canada for a year and a half and loved every minute of it. I would work in one place for around 3 months then move on. My jobs varied from ski patrolling, horse trek guiding to waitressing and cooking w-a-y out in the back country for some hunters. Needless to say I met some fantastic people and saw some of the most spectacular scenery imaginable.

I ran right out of money, and the immigration officers were starting to follow my every move, so I thought it best to head home. Once again I headed to Queenstown. I have now worked at Coronet Peak for 6 seasons, 3 of those winters I was on the Ski Patrol team. Man!, if you want an exciting and challenging job then look no further. I certainly got my fill of fresh air. I worked on the Milford Track for 2 summers as a hostess for the guided walks. We lived 11 miles into the track at Pompolona Lodge. Most afternoons were spent roaming the track, hearing people say "you're going the wrong way". Every six weeks or so we would be able to go back out into the 'real' world on leave. I really got to know the track very well and it holds some very special memories for me.

As a full time seasonal worker I find myself with plenty of 'down time' in between jobs. I try and make the most of that and get in some travel. I joined Sue and my mother on a most wonderful trip through England, Scotland and France. A girlfriend and I also had a very interesting experience working on a Moshav in Israel. We traveled through Jordan, Egypt and Thailand and very quickly learnt how lucky we are to live in NZ.

So now I find myself fulfilling yet another dream. Living in Antarctica. It's a wild place, but then I always enjoy a good challenge. Who knows what I'll do when I leave here, at this stage in my life I have absolutely no idea. I'm just very grateful to have the opportunity to live my dream.

The life and times of Chris

I was thinking (Yeah, I know, I've been warned about that, it's not good for me) of doing a life story or doing a day in the life of a Mechanic. So, here's the life of Chris...

Way back when I was a wipper snapper (just the other day really), I lived in Milton. South Otago. Where I thought I'd grow up to work in the saw mill or in forestry. I did enough work during my school holidays however, to think about following a different career path.

Lucky enough, I scored a Apprenticeship with the New Zealand Forest Service to hopefully become a Diesel mechanic. That worked out quite good, because I ended up out in the forest trying to fix things that I would normally be breaking! That came to an abrupt end with the demise of Government departments.

I went to Lower Hutt and finished my apprenticeship working on trucks etc. I joined the Territorials as an engineer which was a good learning experience. Carrying on, I did a stint on a fishing boat and drive trucks. I did a couple of years in a workshop in Dunedin then, getting bored, I went over to Western Australia to work on a Grain farm for a harvest.

The only problem there was the flies and trying to find my way around approx. 25,000 acres. I hated the flies. Something made me move to Aussie (could it have been the heat and the flies?) and I had friends in Darwin, so that was my address for over a year. During that time I got a taste for working underground (great, no flies!). A season on a Prawn trawler, a job on a Seismic Boat which happened to be in Singapore, then work in Malaysia followed. That boat ran out of work and got tied up. Going to Perth, I worked underground for the next few years (hot, but not many flies). During that time, apart from being hot and dark, I worked on quite a large range of equipment from Trucks, Boggers (underground loader), to Drills. Also I learnt that rock is very hard when you hit it in a Toyota. After saving a bit of cash I moved back to Kiwiland and my old job in Dunedin. Then I scored a job for a year at Scott Base (Ya Hoo! no creepy crawlies OR flies).

A day in the life of Geoff

Geoff sizes up the skirting in Q-Hut

Hi, well where to begin. I suppose first thing in the morning would be a good place. Lying in bed waiting for the alarm to go of at 7-30, while listening to Johno banging around next door (you don't really need an alarm with all the noise and squeaking of floors, you can't sleep in even if you wanted to). After getting up and having a wash, it's time for breakfast which brings the first hurdle for the day... as you enter the mess you never know what sort of music Mork is going to be playing. After a chorus of good mornings and/or grunts from those present it's a quick bite to eat and a cup of coffee, then off to Q hut to start another day's work .

The day goes pretty quick with the putting on the reveals and architraves for the windows, and following behind my offsider Mork who's been fitting the doors in place, and putting architraves on the doors. In between all this work there's been a couple of breaks for morning and afternoon tea, and of course lunch, with which our chef, Pauline, normally spoils us. I'm sure she is trying to get all of us going home several kg heavier than when we arrived (not, of course, that there is any complaints about the matter).

Anyway, back to work which is thankfully finished at around five thirty.

After tea (another good meal) it's time to have a shower and relax a bit before heading over to MacTown at 8pm for bowling with Eric, Dave and Johno. Unfortunately we lost to the Americans by 9 pins with your's truly having a mediocre score of 101. Back to Scott Base to commiserate about our loss and watch some TV. Then it's time to hit the sack to await tomorrow's alarm, and so start another day.

Is it Winter Yet?

June turned out to be a warm month, with the sky clearing from time to time to display some good auroras. Here's the summary for the June:

Max Temperature: -6.9°C

Min Temperature: -37.6°C

Average temperature: -19.7°C

Min Pressure: 966mBar

Max wind: 66 kts, South

I'm not doing rainfall anymore (it doesn't seem to vary a lot with time) but will replace it with the minimum barometric pressure!

What’s HOT and what’s NOT

The Preway at the A-Frame can be HOT. Getting your face covered in soot is NOT, especially when it wasn’t actually dirty until you wiped 'the dirt' off with the towel that was left on the Preway... eh Mork?

Swimming at Midwinter definitely is NOT. Most of the base dipped on the 21st, but by the afternoon the wind was up... bringing the snow with it. Air temperature was about -20°C.

Eric was HOT to go swimming on the 28th, alas the guys were walking away with the ladder as he arrived dressed to spill. Disappointed, but warm, he turned down the generous offer to be hauled out by the arms if he still wanted to jump

Bingo and Dingo's attempts to booby trap the base for unsuspecting Geeks has be labeled as 'LUKE WARM'.

The Night Carte hard copy compiled and edited by Eric

The Night Carte HTML version edited and posted on the internet by Ray

www.geocities.com/coolrunnernz/

9-3-01