Galley McMurdo Station Antarctica 2021-2022

By Angelo J. Bovara

Journal documenting the 2021-2022 austral summer in McMurdo Station Antarctica as one of the cooks feeding a station of 700 people for 5 months.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: May 4, 2022
• ISBN: 9781667845807

Angelo J. Bovara

Angelo Bovara has been an adventurer, analyst, author, bassist, bootlegger, composer, cook, counselor, cowboy, dog handler, electrician, explorer, food handler, gunsmith, handy man, interrogator, jig designer, kennel cleaner, luthier, mentor, musician, NSA financial analyst, oil and gas field technician, pipe fitter, plumber, producer, quality assurance manager, roughneck, staff officer, soldier, teacher, unemployed, vulnerability assessor, wage hand, xylographer, yard attendant, zen practitioner.

Book preview

==============================================

15 Aug 2021

I guess I’ll start here. I am two weeks out from not going back to my day job in favor of Antarctica. The deployment company still has not produced any proof that I will actually be leaving, and the Army hasn’t processed my leave without pay documentation so that I’m not AWOL when I do leave the continent. These folks sure run a tight ship.

==============================================

16 Aug 2021

I reached out to the travel office yesterday. I just wanted to make sure I didn’t need to be doing anything or if I should just keep waiting. A few weeks ago, they sent a cryptic message about maybe being contacted by New Zealand for visa applications and NOT TO DO ANYTHING until receiving further information.

I was told, Just keep waiting. Then, my hiring manager left a message on my phone about maybe deploying a little sooner than previously planned and to call her as soon as possible. She has to give an answer to her bosses by noon tomorrow.

Such organization and planning.

Absolute silence for weeks, THEN give us a possible life altering decision with little or nothing to go on by tomorrow morning! These people are a fucking wreck. They need binding contracts with enforceable measures. Get your shit together USAP-NSF and contractors. Who’s the COR (Contract Officer Representative) for this joint?

==============================================

17 Aug 2021

I discussed the early deployment opportunity today with my recruiter, Marci. When I was first notified, I was to report to San Francisco no sooner than 11 September. The contract I signed indicated as such. The contract had ice dates of 1 October to 21 February. Leaving my AOD (Airport of Departure) on 11 September would then give quarantine time (COVID) in San Fran and Christchurch. Buuuuuut, when I talked to the hiring manager, she said that they had me scheduled for a 21 September report to San Francisco. Sounds like someone screwed up. All that quarantine time won’t likely line up with a 1 October ice date. Whatever, the hiring manager asked me if I’d be willing to go to San Fran on the 11th. I said Yes.

They know that they can swing and wing whatever they need to do and people will bend over backwards for the opportunity to deploy to Antarctica or to have a job. There are too many contractors and not enough execution authority to keep operations moving along cleanly. There is neither the money nor the authority to do anything expeditiously. But since there is little to no actual application of the sciences being done down there, and it’s all just an adventurer’s scam, it’s hard to bitch about any of this.

Oh, but I can bitch in the best conditions.

The Army has trained me well.

These are Soldier for life skills I got.

==============================================

18 August 2021

Radio silence.

==============================================

19 August 2021

Radio silence.

==============================================

20 August 2021

Radio silence.

==============================================

21 August 2021

Radio silence.

==============================================

22 August 2021

Radio silence.

==============================================

23 August 2021

Radio silence.

==============================================

24 August 2021

Radio silence.

Still no word.

People are starting to ask when I’m leaving and expecting me to be gone. As little as I’ve hyped this up, it’s still a big thing. Bills, house, job, everything in order and prepared to go…silence. This is how USAP and NSF run their organization. What are they doing? Can they inform us of the proceedings perhaps?

==============================================

25 August 2021

After not hearing anything for a week, I sent a message yesterday. Just saying that I hate to bother but I’m getting anxious. I need to shut down my house etc. All I got back was, I know you’re anxious, right now you are scheduled to leave between 11 and 21 September.

End of communication.

==============================================

26 August 2021

Today I got many messages. The medical group wants to know if we’ve been COVID vaccinated and if we are willing to get the vaccine. (I don’t know who we are since they blind send everything to everybody and I don’t know anyone else in my cohort.) I said I was vaxxed and sent them a picture of my vaccination card.

A message went out from the communications team saying that there will be a Zoom meeting/telecon next week to discuss what’s going on with travel and the status of operations.

My hiring manager sent out a message telling everyone that she knows we are all anxious and our current schedule to leave is 21 September. She thanked everybody in advance for your flexibility and understanding.

How presumptuous. You wouldn’t have to say Please and Thank you. so much if you weren’t trying to cover fucking up in the first place. We are all begging to go. They are all begging us to be patient. We are just dogs chomping at the bit, and they’re our handlers. I get it. I know they aren’t the military, but they need some command-and-control skills. This is a legit operation and should be treated as such. They’ve been doing this for 45 years. Come on man, get your shit together. We want to run and get stuff done. But what with COVID and weather on Antarctica backing people up it’s getting delayed more than usual. I get it. It’s not even that big of a deal. But just show us what’s up. I’ve been on all the sides of this OPLAN execution and the best way to get everybody ready and moving has always been to show them what’s happening. Be transparent and clear. Don’t be so concerned about not knowing what’s going on yourself, that’s a novice move. Be open and transparent with operations and we’ll spend less time swatting gnats and more time moving.

And, I got a message from the medical staff saying, all of a sudden, that I haven’t filled out some forms; eventhough, I was completely physically and medically prequalified for the deployment. I immediately completed their new requirements.

==============================================

28 August 2021

Filed for my New Zealand visa today. I remember eating dinner with a couple Kiwis in Afghanistan for a few nights at the chow hall on Bagram. Nice fella’s as far as I can remember, just some normal Joe’s. In any case I filled out all the online forms and uploaded my pictures and what have you. There was an option in the list asking what type of traveler I am. It said, Antarctic Traveler. Hell yeah. As far as the nation of New Zealand is concerned, I am and always will be an Antarctica Traveler.

==============================================

29 August 2021

My friend’s dog is hurt. She brought the kids over to their daddy’s house and the dog is lethargic. It won’t go up stairs. Has something hard in its belly. It wasn’t too long ago their older dog had died. My friend still misses the pup, she’s a real sentimental type. (I still miss Charlie something fierce sometimes.) This is gonna be real hard on her.

I got another friend, she’s gonna split from her man, for the reasons people do. I hope the best for her and the fella. I know what it is when the woman you’ve given your life to decides she doesn’t want it anymore. That poor bastard. I wish I could go back five years and save that man from designing his own heartbreak. Because it’s awful. But, somethings have to be done and then undone so that people can say they’ve met their societal obligations – then they go along and recycle it again.

And another friend of mine, her and her man had the COVID. And he’s got heart disease.

Then the other friend is selling her Café’. I want to know why since she just bought the thing and I had so many questions. Dang it, I really wanted to eat all the things she had on her menu too.

Some family near and dear to my heart wants to live in my house while I’m away. It would save them a bunch of money, and cure a touch for their struggle; but I just can’t let them. If I could be contacted to take care of things I’d let them stay for free. But being so remote and unreachable on this deployment, I just want what is safest for everybody. Both in the now, and how the now will impact the future. They’ll be fine, lo I do wish I could give them run of the place.

Anyway, Hurricane Ida made good solid landfall today. Our foster dad was just laid to rest not hardly a fortnight ago and now all my siblings have to deal with this weather. My god the weather, it’s everywhere. As I write, Hurricane Ida is sitting and spinning right atop my brother’s house. Our sister to the west of him is a little out of Ida’s range. My other sister is holed up in Oxford, Mississippi. She’s staying with her daughter to weather the storm, since that’s a bit farther north inland. For some year’s now I’ve hardly blinked a worry to hurricanes, being in Arizona all this time. But Ida has my attention.

==============================================

2 September 2021

Big telecon meeting today. Breaking down the cohorts. They said cohorts are movements of 50 people at a time. Around the world and to the ice. I am cohort 2B.

Their 24-hour duty phone is personned 24 hours a day. Not manned, but personned.

Support Work Tiers

Tier 1: Mission and critical functions

Tier 2: Science and long term, multigenerational studies for animals and environment.

Tier 3: Everything else.

Guidance from travel office: Keep an eye out for your tickets and itinerary. Great guidance, thanks.

We are essentially to be prisoners in hotel rooms so that we can quarantine from the time we leave home to the time we get to the ice. We are told that we will be let outside for planned activity time. Of note, no running or playful activity while outside will be allowed because then we will be breathing heavier and be more likely to get COVID…apparently. Everything is focused on COVID, I wonder what these were like before COVID. This is very much just controlled movement, no big deal. Full quarantine until the ice. Then they have COVID protocols for McMurdo station that are stupid as shit. They do it backwards. When people come in, the station is put in controlled movement, mask wearing, high alert, etc. They should just isolate the people coming in. Instead, they constrain the station.

==============================================

6 September 2021

I’m venturing off into a wild disorganized world of COVID restricted intercontinental travel. I’ll be given the task of cooking a lot of food for a lot of people in Antarctica. These people are scientists and researchers doing what they do for no good reason. But mostly it’s just installation support staff there too support supporting each other. Antarctica is cordoned off from the world. Supposedly it’s ungoverned. Except, only governments can get access to it. That’s not really true, if you have access to an ice breaker ship or an airplane you could theoretically get there. It takes massive and intense resources to get anyone there. Brutal bureaucratic processes governed by international treaties. These people seem so frazzled. What’s the problem they are hiding? Why are they so cagey and shady with everything?

I’m gonna be in a world of hurt when I get there. I am as novice as novice gets in the professional industrial kitchen. Yeah, I know how food and sanitation works, but I’ve never cooked for so many so often. Meh, can’t be that hard. Bad food is gross, but it’s still food. I won’t hurt anyone with beans and macaroni. The sous chef better not be a dick. I will brook no guff in a deployed setting, nor will I produce any such guff for anyone else to brook.

I’m getting impatient. Everything is on hold. Everything is waiting. Not travelling to family. Not finishing school. Not playing in my band. Not building guitars. Not working on my house. Not helping friends. Not building relationships. Just sitting here for weeks and weeks waiting for the USAP to get it’s shit together. Entropy doing its thing against all aspects of life. Put us on a plane. Move our bodies. Quarantine us. Move us. It’s not hard. Everybody is looking at me like I should be gone already. Everywhere I am, people ask why haven’t I left yet. Like it’s something I can control. Get me there.

This is all just an excuse to get to the wild and unreachable. I am impatient for this to start. I suspect it will be in the process of starting until it is complete, then it will be over.

==============================================

7 September 2021

A co-worker had to leave work today because they were in contact with someone who later tested positive for COVID. The co-worker has been vaccinated. I’ve been vaccinated. But still, horrified. He said he’ll stay home until I stopped going to work at the end of this week to limit my contact. He’s a good man, I appreciate that. Still though, horrified. One positive test and you are out. I’ve come so close. The more the USAP delays getting me out there the more danger they put me in for not going.

==============================================

10 September 2021

I got my tickets to San Francisco today!! Celebration!!! Glorious celebration! Butterflies and anxiety and all the things!

I received a text from United Airlines this morning, for no apparent reason. Except that I know when tickets are purchased with your phone number, they send you a little message. I was excitedly expecting the tickets. When I checked my email later in the day, I had a message from the Antarctica people that included my plane ticket. How exciting. I told everyone that I have my ticket and they all seem excited.

Today was also the last day I was at work until either I return from Antarctica or the mission is cancelled. Now I sit at home and clean the house for a week or so. I still don’t know how long I’ll be in San Francisco. I don’t even know what hotel I’ll be in.

There’s still a question about the uniforms when I get to McMurdo. Everyone who has been there before swears on their life that they would rather not have legs than have to wear the pants that are issued to kitchen staff. Some of the participant guides and information provided by the Antarctica people say that we can bring our own kitchen pants as long as they are approved. I posted the question to the Facebook page and the culinary HR lady chimed in saying that we have to use the issued pants. Then someone immediately posted the name of the executive chef for McMurdo and said to ask him. I sent him a message. I am going to bring my kitchen pants no matter what (unless the executive chef actually responds and says not to). Then if I can wear them instead of the sandpaper lined chainmail they issue you then I’ll have them. If I’m not allowed, then I’ll ship my pants back or leave them in the New Zealand location.

==============================================

12 September 2021

I dumped my bags today. Just to make sure I have everything and to take out things I decided I don’t need.

I’ve had a headache since yesterday.

==============================================

16 September 2021

I figured out I was having caffeine headaches. I drink caffeine every day at work, but nowhere else. I accidentally self-detoxed.

The sent the overall travel itinerary/personalized itinerary today. It was produced on 1 September. Why didn’t they send it out earlier?

Again, they go over all the COVID stuff. It’s a little stricter that the soldier movements we do but not too bad. I don’t know why they have to keep harping on it. Surely there aren’t idiots out there that don’t understand what’s going on. Why do we have to go through all this precaution? Isn’t this just like going camping in the Rockies? No, moron.

Problem one, you are going to New Zealand. New Zealand is closed to travel and anybody going through must be specifically and explicitly allowed to go through. Part of the guarantee between nations/programs is that you test negative of COVID before leaving your country and have isolated sufficiently before leaving your country. Either meet the requirement or go fuck off.

The second issue is that you are GOING TO ANTARCTICA. It’s naturally the most isolated place in the world and is currently the largest purest location in the world. They are trying to keep not only COVID but any disease out. Once there, health care is scarce at best and the environment is harsh. Coming down with a significant respiratory illness is a bad idea. They isolate you for weeks on end between the two other continents you go through to keep these issues off the ice.

If any participant tests positive for COVID-19 at any point, deployment and/or onward travel will not be allowed. This is terrifying.

COVID-19 testing of quarantined personnel would be conducted again on days 3 and 12 (per New Zealand requirements) of MIQ. If any participant tests positive for COVID-19 during quarantine, and is confirmed positive with retesting, the New Zealand government would be notified, and the participant would be transferred to a New Zealand quarantine facility and no longer be eligible for deployment to the Antarctic. Brutal.

==============================================

19 September 2021

Fly date draws near.

I feel the same anxiety as when I deployed before.

Strange.

I deployed to Iraq some years ago with the United States Army. I was an interrogator, a corporal.

I don’t remember how I got there but I ended up in Fort Stewart. In Georgia. We were in some old ratty dilapidated National Guard area on Ricker Avenue. A battalion’s worth of people housed in a Company footprint. Crammed in. Two buildings for men. One building for women. A separate shower building you had to schedule to use. From there we flew on a charter plane to Kuwait. I loaded and unloaded my own bags from that aircraft. I wonder if we’ll do the same in the NSF. We did it ourselves, we just needed someone to pilot us there. We were the cargo. Landed in Kuwait, at what I am told was Camp Wolf. Slept with my bags on a plywood floor for a few nights. It reminded me of the time I stayed at my paternal grandmother’s house for vacation and I slept on a rug in an empty room. We were later packaged up and transported by tour bus to Camp Udairi. Then from Udairi to Camp Freddy, working with the British. Richard and Jackie. Nothing else remembered of the Brits but those two names. At some point while in Camp Freddy, one of the interpreter ladies that worked there made us some shitty hummus and did an ugly belly dance. One of the male interpreters was way too into it. Do you think I’ll be greeted in such a way on this deployment? What is the native dance of stones and snow?

Now I’m staged to go to Antarctica. Just a little bit different. I’m lounging on my giant cushy brown couch, soon to go to bed. In less than 48 hours I’ll fly to San Francisco and stay in a hotel for a week. Then a charter to New Zealand and live in their Governmental required managed isolation for a while, having food delivered to me like a king. (Either they are peasants servicing me and not worthy to see me, or I am a pariah to be treated like the Biblical leper). Either way I’ll be living in a hotel with food delivered daily by the meal. I can’t wait to eat mediocre hamburgers and cafeteria spaghetti like the God of Egypt stuck in the San Francisco airport Hyatt hotel.

As opposed as those two deployment routes are, I feel the same. My mind and my body are acting the exact same way.

In one I am bound by duty to go forth, in another I have pursued intently on my own.

In one I am going forward into fear, in the other I am riding along in bliss.

In both cases, I am going forward ignorant.

It is not where I am going that causes the anxiety, or excitement, or whatever brain chemical reaction it is today. It is that I am entering into this, whatever it may be today, as a blind fool. Holding onto faith and hope that these other motherfuckers got their shit together enough to get me where I am going. I serve them as their tool, and they serve me as mine.

-----

As I sit out on my patio tonight, I listen to the crickets. I look at the moon, and my yard. I smell the sweet honeysuckle Misty gave me for my birthday that year I pitched a tent in the Rocky Mountains. It’s cool. And warm. The perfect night to sit in the dark. Looking at my desert stars one more time before going south. The coyotes are doing their round-up, yipping and howling before turning in for bed. I’ll miss my coyotes.

==============================================

20 September 2021

I’ve been saying some goodbyes to some people. A lot of people are saying they hope it’s great and everything I hoped it could be. I don’t think they realize the extent of this adventure. I think they are over hyping it via me. I do not expect this to be some rapture on the mountain. I expect it to be intensely hard work, like I’ve never experienced before. I am going as a production cook, and I am currently indifferent about the act of cooking. I expect to wholly hate cooking by the time I return. I expect it to be a boring pain in the ass while going there and returning. I expect it to be something I only do once. This was a goal I set for myself because I never thought of achieving it. One foot on the ice simply means I’ve achieved something. I achieve a lot for no reason other than showing up. I expect to be there, then to not be there anymore. I do expect to impress people briefly when it comes up in the future that I was on Antarctica. I expect most people to never know or care at all if they do find out. I expect to never NEED to adventure again after this, I don’t want to climb mountains, and if I can get to Antarctica then I can practically get anywhere, so there will be no need to go.

I don’t expect much of anything from this journey. I only expect to be sore and to have done it.

Something done is something done. And there is satisfaction in that.

==============================================

21 September 2021

First of three legs done. Tucson to San Francisco. No weirdness. I’m both excited and annoyed. Excited to get going. Annoyed at the Zoom meetings. They say the same thing every time and there are some very stupid people in chat. There are also some very pompous people in chat. And a very annoyed USAP staff.

I have a luggage load of about 100 pounds. A 49-pound duffle, a 35-pound duffle, and 20-pound carry-on bag. I had to carry all this about 200 yards today and thought my chest was gonna blow out my body.

I’m impressed and excited for the menu they are providing us here for our isolation in San Fran. I’m going to get so fat. I weighed myself before leaving the house this morning, 200.1 pounds.

All paid for by you, the tax payer. Thanks!

I’m doing pushups, sit ups and squats each day. Not enough to burn any significant calories, but something so I’m not on my ass constantly.

I cut my own hair for the first time ever today. I used an electric beard trimmer with an adjustable guard. In the end, it came out okay. Good enough for what’s going on here. I think I’ll go to a barber (if there is one) on the ice though. I made a huge mess in my hotel bathroom. And I had to stop halfway to let the trimmer recharge, while the top of my head is sparse in hair, the sides and back are still pretty sturdy. It feels good though, like I just left the barber.

==============================================

22 September 2021

Another Zoom meeting. Company business. I’m not even part of this specific company, PAE. I’m Gana-A’Yoo. I’ve never cared less about pay and benefits. I get paid about $700 a week. I don’t even care if I get paid. It’s almost not worth my trouble to do timecards for small a pay compared to GETTING ON THE ICE.

Why doesn’t each company just do their own thing independently, why are we all tied together like this?

Don’t forget to close your time card every Sunday. ??? WTF ??? What’s gonna happen if I don’t. You not gonna pay me? You gonna send me to Siberia?

Maybe I don’t care about any of this because I have my shit together. I have the VA (as bad as it is), the Army, a ton of cash I’ve saved up through my entire life for this. I guess if somebody got hired on to this expedition by answering a help wanted ad in the Penny Saver they might be concerned with benefits such as eye exams and dental coverage. WE’RE GOING TO ANTARCTICA, WHY IS THIS SO CORPORATE. Just give people all the benefits and pay and get movin’.

They’re talking about signing up for dental and medical insurance. This is ridiculous. We aren’t permanent employees. We’re seasonal. Like the gift wrap tables at the mall during Christmas. (Wait, do gift wrappers have to deal with all this paperwork to get $34 a day to wrap presents. How horrible. Why is this shit so complicated? There’s gotta be a better standard way.) Why doesn’t USAP/NSF have some federal support sponsored program for deploying persons. It’s like they are trying to hodge-podge this together like a combination of private business (as though you are a bunch of accountants in Omaha) and a government operation (as though you are going to Antarctica in support of the National Science Foundation).

Here’s the thing with that though, the National Science Foundation and USAP aren’t actually doing anything. Everything going on down there is just private organizations, schools, research institutes, science organizations like NASA, and contractors. The government role is nil. It’s all a cover to enforce the Antarctic Treaty and to leverage access to the continent. We have to maintain presence, for some reason.

Everything expedition-wise is a wreck, everything company-wise is the same old shit you deal with when you get your first job with MegaCorp Inc.

Maybe I’m the one that’s wrong. These aren’t even expeditions anymore, are they. They are simply corporate contracts. Doing a thing. Be contractor and go to support soldiers in Iraq. Be a contractor and go to support nerds in Antarctica. Be a contractor and go paint the rocks by that bridge. Not an adventure, or expedition; simply a job. Make sure you fill out your time card. Disgusting.

They should focus much less on the technical of company insurance and so forth and