Life as a DA...

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  McMurdo, Antarctica
Wednesday, September 5, 2007

We have finally had a chance to settle in a bit and take some pictures around town. There are still a lot of things to see and do, but we have to keep reminding ourselves that we have 6 more months to squeeze it all in!

We are so happy to see that everyone is reading the blog and anxiously awaiting more entries! We try to write them as fast as we can, but with work, recreational activities, and slower computers it takes a bit to keep it updated. We have received a lot of questions about what our everyday life is like so this entry is dedicated to shedding some light on the glamorous life as a DA!

DA - also known as Dining Attendants or "smurfs" in the galley due to our blue shirts! Currently there are 13 DA's, but in about 3 weeks our Main Body flights will begin arriving and once everyone is here there will be a total of 34 DA's.

We are thankfully on the same schedule with the same day off. This makes our sleeping schedule and recreational time a lot easier to manage. There are 3 shifts in the galley: 7:00am - 4:00pm, 11:00am - 9:00pm and 12:00am - 8:00am. We are on the 11:00am - 9:00pm shift with Sundays off. There is an opportunity to swap shifts every two weeks, but we prefer the shift we are on and have asked to stay on it for the entire season. We will soon be changing from having Sunday off to having a weekday off so that we may volunteer in other departments to see what they are like as well as be off on a not so busy day. (The entire station works M-F 7:00-5:00pm with a few exceptions)

Our 9 hour shifts are broken down into 1 hour tasks that change daily so we aren't doing repetitive motions that would be draining or cause injury. We are given 1 half hour break and 2 fifteen minute stretch breaks every day. For our meal breaks we all (DA's & cooks) eat together at Family Meal which is held a half hour before the meal service. We usually join Family Meal even when we are not working because it gives a chance to eat with all of our friends as well as get the food while it is still hot and stash some desserts before they are all gone! Therefore a typical day for us would look like this:

Make Milk/Juice (powdered milk/juice) - Restocking/Cleaning - stretch break - 1/2 hr. break - Clean Dining Room - Dish Room - stretch break - Eat Dinner - Pot Room - Dish Room - Pot Room - Clean Dining Room

There are other tasks that could be added to the rotation such as deep cleaning of various equipment or the dining room/kitchen, helping the bakers, taking out trash & cleaning bathrooms, making flight lunches for departments that travel...and the list goes on!

As you can see from the pictures we have a typical cafeteria style kitchen and dining room. The dining room seats 400 and right now we only have a population of 350. When Main Body arrives our total population will be near 1,100! In the galley we have 2 expedite grills in each corner that will be used during Main Body for more made-to-order selections. Right now only one of them is used for Sunday brunch to make omelette's. There are several hot/cold bars, a salad bar (which is currently being used as a bread/dessert station because we won't have any freshies until Main Body), a deli station that is open 24 hours, a cereal station and a condiment station. There is also a drink station that has 6 Minute Maid fruit juices, coffee, highly sugared Kool-aid that we refer to as "liquid crack", and hot water for tea's of hot cocoa. We must not forget to mention the highlight of the dining room - our very own ice cream machine! It is beyond me why anyone would want to eat ice cream in Antarctica, but Frosty Boy is very popular! We almost have riots when it is temporarily out of service!

The food here is so delicious!!! The cooks and bakers do a very good job at making sure we all have a thick layer of insulation to get us through the season! Surprisingly we have a wide variety of food to choose from seeing as all of the food is either canned or frozen. In January a vessel supplies the station with all of the food for the entire year, not just this season! This situation causes the cooks to be very creative with the menus!

At each meal we have a selection of meat (or fish), poultry, and a vegetarian main course with sides of soup, vegetables, starch and bread. So far we have had everything from fish, such as Mahi Mahi, Salmon, and Catfish; Prime Rib steak and Pot Roast; various chicken entrees, such as Chicken Marbella, Kung Pow Chicken, Chicken Fajitas and other favorites to include Gyros, Sloppy Joes, Hamburgers, Turkey Tetrezzini, and Tacos. The baker's do their part by providing breakfast patries, breads, pies, cakes, muffins, brownies, and our favorite - all kinds of cookies on Wednesday's!

Although the majority of our daily life currently consists of being in the galley we do get outside a bit...if you count walking to work being outside! We have gone on a personal tour around town which was hosted by one of our Lead DA's, Troix. We were lucky enough to get that tour seeing as he went to play basketball and broke his knee about an hour later! He was a winter-over that was going to be leaving in 5 weeks, but instead was medically evacuated to Christchurch for surgery the next day!

On a happy note...we are getting more sunlight everyday! When we arrived to McMurdo on August 20th the temperature was a brisk -34 degrees with only 6 hours of sunlight. Today it was -40 degrees with 10 hours of sunlight. We receive about 1/2 hour of increased sunlight everyday. Soon the sun will just float between a sunrise setting and a sunset setting without ever actually going down. We are still hoping to see some nacreous clouds before complete daylight!

The weather changes very quickly here and the weather forecasts are used as vague descriptions. We mainly have 3 types of weather conditions which gage when activities and outdoor travel are safe. They are as follows:

Condition 1: weather conditions when visibility is less than 100 ft. or wind speed is greater than 55 knots (>60 mph) or wind chill is greater than -100F (-38C)
 
Condition 2: weather conditions when visibility is less than ¼ miles or wind speed is between 48-55 knots (about 55mph to 65mph) or wind chill factor is between -5F and -100F (or between -24C and -38C)
 
Condition 3: weather conditions from anything better than condition 2 up to a beautiful sunny day.

Most of the time we are in a condition 3, but the other day we were in a condition 2 for most of the afternoon. We were at work at the time so there was no worry about having to be out in it for any reason, although we did go outside and take some pictures!

Stay Tuned: Our next entry will include a detailed description & photo's of McMurdo Station...

Post your own travel photos for friends and family Pictures

01. Dining Room	02. Kitchen	03. Food Service Area	04. Deli & Juice Station
05. Milk & Cereal Station	06. Dish Room	07. Pot Room	08. Some of the DA's...

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