October 19, 2024 - McMurdo, Antarctica

Hello to anyone and everyone who is reading the inaugural post to my new blog. The intentions of these posts, which should be semi-regular over the next 12 moths, is to keep friends and family up to date with my world as I live and work at McMurdo on Ross Island in Antarctica. I intend to use this space to give updates on what I am up to, as well as to write down my thoughts on any topic I feel may come of interest to those who know me. 

This blog is actually a very postponed sequel. Some who read this may remember another blog I wrote with similar intentions around 15 years ago while I lived in Santiago, Chile. I plan on making this one similar, and though those old posts are now lost to the endless void of the internet (unless you can convince my mother to lend you the printed copies), this new space I'm hoping will last a little longer. That's assuming Google, who is hosting this blog, doesn't end up the same way MSN did, where my previous blog was written. (Too big to fail right?)

Now, with all that out of the way, lets get to the immediate updates. At this point, I have now been on base for a little over a week, and things are great. I imagine it's just the honeymoon phase, with all the new people and sights, and just the simple matter of getting things figured out. New things are exciting, and learning new things always tingles the brain in a certain satisfying way, or at least it does for me. Solving new problems of the mundane can also make the time fly. For example, my big goal for tomorrow is to find and figure out how to do my laundry. Exciting I know, but when you don't even know where the laundry room is, or how the machines work, or where to get detergent, or if you will need to pay... It's going to be an adventure! (I hope a tinge of sarcasm is coming through, though in all honesty figuring things out is most of the fun.)

The thing I have been spending the vast majority of my time with is work. I work 6 days a week, 9 hours a day (with an hour for lunch) at the water treatment plant as a mechanic. I am responsible for all preventative maintenance and repairs to all aspects of the plant itself. Fortunately, the plant only produces water at a rate of about 60 GPM (gallons per minute), which adds up to a little over 85,000 gallons a day, if it even needed to run all day, which it doesn't. To put that in perspective, the plants I've worked at previously in my career produce any where from 750,000 gallons a day to 2,000,000 gallons a day, and those are still considered small. So to say this is a small plant is a huge understatement. That is not to say the treatment process isn't somewhat more complex however. The plant utilizes three reverse osmosis skids to desalinate ocean water which is pulled in directly from the ocean on one side of the base. Here is a photo of two of the skids and some pipes and whatnot:

I know not many of you will find the inner workings of an industrial looking treatment plant all that exciting, but it is where I am for the majority of my days here. In the background you will see a large green tank, which is one of four, and used to store the treated drinking water before it is sent to the rest of the base for people to drink, shower, cook, and clean with. It's oddly bizarre to have your storage tanks indoors, when every single other tank you have seen or worked on has been outside way up high on a hill somewhere. 

The next photo is of my office:

It's not much, but its got a chair, a computer for my emails and work orders, and lots and lots of mechanical parts. Honestly, I kind of like it. It's upstairs above where the previous picture was taken amongst shelves and racks of spare pumps and pipe fittings. It's secluded and a great place to be when I'm not tearing something apart or putting it back together. 

And last but not least, a photo looking out the front door of the plant:

The flat area in the foreground is the ocean frozen over, with the Royal Society Mountain Range in the background on mainland Antarctica. That's right, I'm working on beach front property for the next 12 months. The ice will begin to break up here soon when the temperatures start to go up and that's when the seals and penguins will start hanging around, but for now, it is mostly just a frozen hellscape constantly thrashed by wind that has been dropping the temps to around -30 degrees Fahrenheit on a normal day. On a stormy day or in the heart of winter, it will be much much worse. The view though is not one I think I will be getting tired of anytime soon. There will absolutely be more pictures to come!

I think this will suffice for the first post on this blog. Obviously there is mountains more to write about, and I will continue to update regularly. I hope everyone who is reading this is doing great and if you have any burning questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to me! Considering it is mostly family or friends who should be reading this, you have my contact info and I have normal access to email and even fairly consistent communication trough text messaging, though bear with me if you text me. With a 15 hour time change to Colorado and storms, texts may or may not go through. Phone calls can be spotty, and due to the time difference and my work schedule, it is probably not the best way of getting a hold of me at this point, but we can always set something up!

More updates to come!😊

Matt