M/V American Tern

For the past four days I've been helping with ship offload. This is the time of year that we get all our food and supplies that will be used next year. My job for this has been as Pier Announcer and Hatch Checker. Besides a couple equipment operators on the pier, I am the only American civilian there. The rest of the people are either Kiwi cargo handlers or US NAVCHAPS (part of the Navy). The Pier by the way (the dirt part you see up against the ship) is actually a big chunk of ice covered in dirt. So, all containers are loaded onto trucks that are driving on this "ice pier" that is just floating their. The trucks then drive over the bridge and onto solid ground.

As a Pier Announcer, my task was to identify each container as it come off one of the three cranes and was loaded onto a flatbed truck. I then look up the container number, find out how much it weighs, and where it is going. From here, I announce the information on the radio so people around town know what is headed where. The weight is important, because some containers require cranes or heavy duty forklifts to pick them off the truck. Most of the containers are about 20-30,000lbs but some as heavy as 65,000lbs.

I saw some cool things come off including some new Challenger snow cats. Most of the time it was just Milvans (the orange containers you see in most of the pictures).

Since I am the RSPC contact person on the pier, I've gotten to meet a ton of people. I love the Kiwis. Two of the great people I've met include Vince on the left and John on the right. Vince is from Auckland and is normally a police officer at the airport. John works in a town just north of Wellington and does logistics work. Both of them are very nice guys and have given me their contact information incase I need a place to stay while on the North Island.

After the ship is offloaded, it's time to put all the milvans from last year back on the ship. A lot of them are empty, but some of them have our waste or other items being returned to the states. My task here is to watch the hatches from onboard the ship and record what containers go where. This task can be difficult. More or less we have a ~20 page three dementional map of the ship and each container location has an individual number. I would explain the rest of it, but it would take way to long and I'm sure no one really cares. Today we got things all messed up and I had to stay late (past the 12 hr shift) to try and sort everything out.

Up until now, I have really loved Antarctica, and have rarely complained or even wanted to leave. However, the past 4 days have been so cold that I can't wait to see the green grass of Christchurch. We have gone through about 4 cases of hand warmers that don't even come close to fighting the effects of the cold. I'm suprised I still have all my toes and that chunks of my face haven't turned black. Every night I take a hot shower and just stand there until feeling comes back to my hands and feet. The joys of the warm sand on the beaches of NZ will be the best reward! Ship offload has given a whole new definition to the meaning of COLD