Turnover week

From the moment we walked across the gangplank onto Anvers Island and Palmer Station, the week we had for turnover was completely bonkers.

The winter Cargo team was waiting for us on the pier...

...and while most of the incoming summer team went off on their station orientation and started various trainings, the two guys who will be working the boathouse and I joined the Palmer Cargo duo and the ship's crew to start offloading cargo containers.

I got an instant, vertical-learning-curve, crash course in marine cargo operations, hopping on taglines, working up to marshaling when the crane brought the loads pier-side, and so on.

As soon as ship off-load was complete and cargo dispersed around the station to places it could safely sit temporarily until we have time to officially receive everything, it was time to mobilize the entire station to make sure the hours-long offload of 50,000 gallons of fuel from the ship to the station (to feed our operations the next six months) was accomplished without incident (looking out especially for line leaks that would contaminate the environment). We all took shifts walking particular parts of the fuel hose or just watching attachment points.

It was during this task that I started to notice the thing that makes Palmer so special: everyone here is so caring and community minded. It really feels like a family, and that everyone is striving to do things in the nicest and most helpful and coziest ways possible. The team in charge of the fuel transfer literally actually put someone on the task of bringing hot chocolate and baked goods (kindly provided by the kitchen) around to the volunteers. U.N.B.E.L.I.E.V.A.B.L.E.

Then there was the turnover of emergency response duties from the winter to summer crew. Those who have been following along here for several years might remember that during the winter at South Pole, our crew was small enough that emergency response was the responsibility of the entire crew rather than a team of professionals dedicated to the task. Palmer is even smaller than Pole, so here even in the summertime the support staff also acts as the emergency response team, with some people having gone to fire school, some working on a medical trauma team, and so on. This time around, I'll be a first-responder. This was the first of the monthly drills we'll be doing all summer.

Then it was time to reload the ship with the northbound cargo...

...and somewhere in there, I FINALLY got to move out of the container in the ship's cargo hold and into a room on station. This movement was a well-coordinated flip-flop between winter and summer crew. As soon as the emergency response turn-over was complete, the seasons instantly were considered switched. We slung all the summer people's luggage off the boat with the ship's crane, slung all the winter people's luggage onto the boat, the winter crew moved into staterooms onboard and started eating their meals onboard, and the summer crew moved into rooms on the station and started eating in the station galley. Radios were passed from winter to summer crew, desks and offices were relinquished, and the winter crew's exit truly began and we summer folk had to hope we were on our feet (and over our dock rock) and could take the reins.

I'm not going to lie...I was ECSTATIC to get out of that cargo hold and into a room on land!!! It is twice as much space and rather than two roommates, I currently have it all to myself. HEAVEN. I knew that as soon as we get another ship (which is actually just about to happen as this post goes live...but I'm still playing catch up with these posts) I would have a roommate from among the scientists coming in. But after that time on the ship, two weeks of a room all to myself that had a window to the outside world and didn't smell like urine or vibrate with the ruckus of enormous diesel engines felt like the best thing that had ever happened to me.

I also started to take the driver's seat at the desk I was taking over from the winter Cargo Senior, in this office that I'll be sharing with the Cargoperson and the Mechanic. (My desk is on the right.)

That first week was one 12-hour work day after another (including Saturday; we have 6-day work weeks here) and so much information coming at me all the time that usually by noon I was having trouble thinking straight, and I would scarf down some lunch in 15 minutes and then get back to it. There was just so much to do with the ship in port and trying to glean as much information as I can from the winter person I am replacing before she disappeared (especially since the full-time program person who should be my boss but who quit back in August after hiring me still hasn't been replaced). Totally exhausting, and one of the more intense weeks of my life. Which is why these posts did not start going up until after the ship left. But, oops, we're not QUITE there yet....