Travels In Antarctica: Days Wore Into Days Because There Were No Nights

By Frosty Wooldridge 

               “God sent His daylight to scatter the nightmares of the darkness.”

                                             Cherry-Garrard, 1922

                                             THE WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD

           The days wore into days because there were no nights.  But the long night was coming.   Like something out of a movie from “Lawrence of Arabia” where the blistering heat and the eternal sands shifted in front of a man’s eyes—the benign sun shone down on Mac Town.  Unlike desert sand, it shone on a desert of ice.  Everywhere I looked for hundreds of miles to the horizon—snow and ice. 

          The toilets, sinks, brooms, mops and recycle cans became a blur in my nine-hour days.  While looking out the windows from the buildings where I worked, I saw the ice pack smashing itself into new shapes and sizes.  There was no end to the moving drama from the glaciers across the sound and the movement of wind on the ice before me.

          Astoundingly enough, humans in Antarctica had named 78 forms of ice.  Among them—frazil ice, grease ice, green ice, ice flowers, ice saddles, pancake ice, bullet ice and seventy more.  Harsh temperatures and Katabatic winds created unimaginable shapes on the ice continent.

          Out in the Sound, it was called ‘pack ice’.  Because of shifting pressure points, it smashed itself into squares, rectangles, circles, triangles, pyramids, domes and tubes.

          One evening after dinner, I donned my parka and walked out to Hut Point near Vince’s Cross. The ‘Nattie B’ had left for a scientific survey along the coast.  The Green Wave and fuel ship would arrive any day.

        I’d gone out to the point often in the preceding four months to soak up a little solitude and imagine the three-masted sailing ships that, in

1910 through 1917, moored exactly where I was sitting near the cross.  But that evening after work, I saw a watery path leading out of McMurdo and out to the ocean.  In front of me, the sun had begun to rotate lower in the sky.  It glanced off the glaciers across the Sound giving them a golden sheen against the white snowcaps of the Royal Society Range.

          In the distance, I noticed a wispy column of water explode out of the watery path left by the icebreaker.  Make that two columns!  Several minutes later, another column of spray broke the stillness along the ice.  Whales!  That’s what they were!  I waited for another 15 minutes until they made their way to within 30 yards of where I sat.  They were two whales.

          “Bet you never expected to see Minkes did you?”  Gloria, a science officer said when she approached where I sat.

          “They’re Minkes?” I said.

          “Sure are,” she said.  “They follow the ice breaker in every year to find the best krill feeding grounds.”

          “This is too cool,” I said.

          She went on to explain that Minkes were baleen whales known as ‘finner’ whales.  Those included blue, fin, sei and Bryde’s whales.  Such whales featured small dorsal fins.  Their torpedo shape gives them high-speed capability.  More than 800,000 are estimated to live in Antarctic waters.

          “They run 35 feet long, weigh five tons and eat 900 pounds of krill a day,” she said.  “They’ve been on the planet for 20 million years.”

          I gazed at those magnificent animals.  Gloria was my personal biology teacher.  After an hour, I stood up and walked back to my barracks.  My collection of sightings of Antarctic animals in that faraway place was complete.

          Two days later, the fuel ship docked at the pier outside my window.  That ship was at least two and a half football fields long.  It didn’t seem to belong near Scott’s Hut.

          For three days, it pumped millions of gallons of fuel oil into the large storage tanks above town.  As the fuel emptied, the ship rose out of the water by 20 feet.  Once finished, the ship pumped in seawater to sink it back down to its traveling mode.  I woke up one morning and the ship was gone.

          Several days later, the Green Wave ship docked at the pier.  It was as big as the tanker.  It off-loaded an unending supply of food, wood, machines, computers, engines, building materials, vehicles and much more.  Once unloaded, an armada of vehicles brought containers of solid waste, recyclables, junk and other debris to be transported back to the USA and disposed of there.

          Only as long ago in 1988, McMurdo trash had been dumped in the ocean or burned in a pit near town.  If it hadn’t been for Greenpeace steaming into McMurdo and raising a red flag, we might still be dumping into the ocean and burning trash in the pit.  Under the ice, a junkyard of trucks, metal, trash and garbage desecrates the ocean floor.

          Fortunately, the muck racking ‘do-gooder’ Greenpeace ship succeeded in forcing the USA to ship all trash back to the USA.  I’m proud to be a 30-year member of this outstanding organization that stands as humanity’s conscience.  Without the millions of donations by little people like you and me, our planet would be further along in ecological ruin.

With the Green Wave loaded up, it backed out of the deep-water pier and headed into the Southern Oceans.   In a way, it was like Shackleton’s ship Endurance sinking.  We were once again left with no visible evidence of the outside world.

However, there was a change in the wind.

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Other books by Frosty Wooldridge

All books available at: 1 888 280 7715, www.amazon.com, www.barnesandnoble.com

Handbookfor Touring Bicyclists–Bicycling touring is growing in popularity each year. Men and women around the world are taking to the highways and the “open air” is their kitchen.  On the pages of this book, you’ll discover how to buy, carry, prepare, and store food while on tour. Discover the ‘ins and outs’ with a “Bakers Dozen” of touring tips that are essential for successful bicycle adventuring. Whether you’re going on a weekend ride, a week-long tour, or two years around the world, this handbook will help you learn the artistry of bicycling and cooking.

Strike Three! Take Your Base–The Brookfield Reader, Sterling, VA; 2001. ISBN 1-930093-01-2. To order this hardcover book, send $19.95 to Frosty Wooldridge, POB 207, Louisville, CO 80027. This poignant story is important reading for every teen that has ever experienced the loss of a parent from either death or divorce.  This is the story of a boy losing his father and growing through his sense of pain and loss. It is the story of baseball – a game that was shared by both the boy and his father – and how baseball is much like life.

An Extreme Encounter: Antarctica—“This booktransports readers into the bowels of million year old glaciers, katabatic winds, to the tops of smoking volcanoes, scuba diving under the ice, wacky people, death, outlaw activities and rare moments where he meets penguins, whales, seals and Skua birds. Hang on to your seat belts–you’re in for a wild ride where the bolt goes into the bottom of the world.” Sandy Colhoun, editor-in- chief, The Antarctic Sun

Bicycling Around the World: Tire Tracks for your Imagination–This book mesmerizes readers with animal stories that bring a smile to your face. It will pain your mind and heart seeing the Third World. It chills you with a once-in-a-lifetime ride in Antarctica where you’ll meet a family of Emperor penguins. Along the way, you’ll find out that you have to go without a mirror, sometimes, in order to see yourself. The greatest aspect of this book comes from–expectation! Not since ‘Miles from Nowhere’ has a writer captured the Zen and Art of Bicycle Adventure as well as Wooldridge. Not only that, you enjoy a final section-’Everything you need to know about long distance touring’. He shows you ‘How to live the dream’. You’ll have the right bike, equipment, money and tools to ride into your own long distance touring adventures. If you like bicycling, you’ll go wild reading this book. If you don’t like bicycling, you’ll still go wild reading this book.

Motorcycle Adventure to Alaska: Into the Wind—“Seldom does a book capture the fantasy and reality of an epic journey the magnitude of a ‘Motorcycle Adventure to Alaska’. Trevor and Dan resemble another duo rich in America’s history of youthful explorers who get into all kinds of trouble – Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. They plied the Mississippi River, but Dan and his brother push their machines into a wild and savage land—Alaska. My boys loved it.” John Mathews, father of two boys and a daughter.

Bicycling the Continental Divide: Slice of Heaven, Taste of Hell—“This bicycle dream ride carries a bit of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. The author mixes hope with adventure, pain with courage and bicycling with mountains. John Brown, a friend left behind to battle cancer, provides guts and heart for his two friends who ride into the teeth of nature’s fury. Along the way, you’ll laugh, cry and gain new appreciations while pondering the meaning of life.”

Losing Your Best Friend: Vacancies of the Heart—“This is one heck of a powerful book!  It’s a must read for anyone that has lost a friend or parent.  It will give you answers that you may not have thought about.  It will touch your heart and you will learn from their experiences.  It also shows you what you can do if you suffer conflict with your friend’s wife or girlfriend.”   Jonathan Runy

Rafting the Rolling Thunder—“Fasten your ‘raft-belts’ folks!  You’re in for the white water rafting ride of your life.  Wooldridge keeps readers on the edge of their seats on a wild excursion through the Grand Canyon.  Along the way, he offers you an ‘outlaw’ run by intrepid legend “Highwater Harry”, a man who makes a bet with the devil and nearly loses his life.  The raft bucks beneath you as Harry crashes through Class V rapids.  And the Grand Canyon Dish Fairies, well, they take you on separate rides of laughter and miles of smiles!  Enjoy this untamed excursion on a river through time.”  Jason Rogers

Misty’s Long Ride: Across America on Horseback—Misty’s Long Ride, by Smooth Georgia Mist (Howard Wooldridge – Frosty Wooldridge’s brother), AuthorHouse, 2005. ISBN 1-4208-5766-5 (sc).  “As good as Howard was, sometimes there was nothing he could do about our situation in the burning inferno of Utah. In that agonizing desert, a man’s mouth became so dry, he couldn’t spit. I felt the heat cook my hooves at ground level where it felt like walking alone in the middle of a farrier’s furnace. Above us, vultures soared in the skies searching for road-kill. Yet, Howard pulled down the brim of his hat and pushed forward. I followed this cowboy because he was a Long Rider and I was his horse….” For anyone who loves horses and high adventure – Howard’s horse Misty tells one of the great adventure tales in the 21^stcentury by galloping coast to coast across America. You’ll enjoy horse sense, horse humor, unique characters and ride the wild wind.

All books available at: 1 888 280 7715, www.amazon.com, www.barnesandnoble.com