Station Tour, A pod, lower level

Zoomed in and labeled map to help identify things

Today's ramble will just walk us down the left side of the lower level hallway of A pod. On the right, A1 and A4 start with bathrooms and then split into two hallways with ~12-20 berthing rooms per hallway. Some rooms are internal with no windows, which some folks love in the summer when the sun does not set. The rest are external rooms with windows. Unfortunately, our windows have to be covered up for about 3/4 of winter so no white light escapes station and throws off the scientific cameras.

The Quiet Reading Room

The first room of interest in A3 is the Quiet Reading Room or library. There is a great Antarctica history section here and a bunch of other good books. However, some folks just use the room to get away to a quiet space, but station is almost always bustling.  In the summer, finding a room to hang with your friends can be tough so folks often end up there.

The next room up is the laundry room. Laundry and detergent are free. We are limited to one load per week.

The Laundry room.

Just past the Laundry room is the volunteer-run Greenhouse and one of my favorite spots on station. I'll do a separate post on it, the store, and the post office tomorrow.  

After those three spots is one of our recycling centers. The US Antarctic Program has an incredibly detailed recycling system. It is one of the most comprehensive on the planet. Everything except human waste is returned via plane to McMurdo Station. The different categories that I can remember are:

1. Ferrous Metal
2. Non-Ferrous Metal
3. Landfill (does not fit any other category)
4. Food Waste
5. Mixed Recycling (what you normally do back home)
6. Corrugated Cardboard
7. Printer Toner
8. Light bulb Ballasts
9. HazWaste
10. Electronic Scrap (minus the cords that go in Ferrous Metal)
11. Fabric (for the craft room)
12. Skua (think Goodwill, the skua is an Antarctica scavenging bird that lives near the coast)
13. Sani-waste (anything with body fluids)
14. Wood Scrap. 

Personally, I hate digging through and sorting my garbage so I always just take stuff directly to the correct bin. Other folks fill their garbage cans then walk to the center and sort it, piece by piece. No thanks.

One of our recycling centers

Next stop past the recycling center is a set of stairs to the upper level. Past that is our sauna. I don't use it much because I never plan ahead enough to heat it up for the 60-90 minutes before I want to get in. Some folks it almost every night. The last time I did it was around 8pm two weeks ago. After I was done, I had to drink a ton of water to hydrate and ruined my night's sleep by waking up repeatedly to pee. I have to figure out a way to get in a morning sauna session instead.

South Pole Sauna

It's important to not sit in the sauna too long without cooling off a bit. DZ is one of our three exits from station and is right by the sauna between A1 and A4. It's a great place cool off in a hurry.

Another coat room between the Beer Can and DZ.

The last stop on the lower level tour is just another coat room. There are two entrances to the elevated station in A pod, DZ from summer camp and the Beer Can from the arches (B pod just has one, DA). The coat room is an easy place for folks coming into A pod to drop their coats off before heading in for a meal or to their room. The coats are so big they are always in the way if you hang them in your room or from a chair.

Station Tour, Wrapping up B pod and the lounges

Zoomed in and labeled map to help identify things

OK, this will be a quick post about the rest of the B pod. Perhaps the most important and worst thing about B pod is that there is only a single toilet for B2, B3, B4. That bathroom doubles as a janitor's closet. However, it is the only private bathroom on station. Some folks definitely make the trip for some privacy. You can head into the B1 berthing pod to use the bathrooms too. It is just a longer walk.

When you first get to South Pole Station, you walk from the runway to the B3 entrance. You head up some stairs and the first thing you usually see is the coat room. Nothing special there except you see it first and there is a heavily used popcorn maker. We just ran out of the fake butter to flavor the popcorn. Folks are wondering if real butter will work.

The coat room with our all important popcorn maker.

Just past the coat room in the hall way are three glass cases. Two are filled with previous pole markers. They used to be replaced at infrequent intervals, but now they are replaced every year. We are currently planning our own marker and our two machinists will spend the next few months making it. The last glass case is filled with fun South Pole memorabilia.

Previous geographic South Pole markers

South Pole artifacts.

Just beside the coat room on the lower level when you walk in the door to South Pole station is a closed door. That door leads to the B3 gaming/TV lounge. The bookshelves on the left are filled with games that were bought by the defunct recreation department or donated by past employees. To the right, is a shelving unit filled with 6-7 game systems. Out of site on the back wall are three enormous bookshelves filled with DVDs of TV series from the last 20-30 years. Every Monday, I watch the sci-fi series the Expanse. We are about to start season 4 after being here for ~4 months. Right after, Trashy TV takes over. This week, I think they were watching MILF Manor. This lounge is particularly nice because it is not near any berthing rooms so you don't have to worry about waking folks up.

The B3 Lounge

On the upper level, on the way to the B1 berthing is the B1 pool, dart, and movie lounges. The first room only seems to get used for pool this winter, but during the summer it is a major hang out spot. I've been playing a little pool, but prefer the movie lounge adjacent to it. They have some 1-2 year old theater quality chairs and we have a huge DVD selection in addition to the movies folks brought down on hard drives. At the start of the season, I led a small group in the miserable task of inventorying and labeling all the movies alphabetically so they could be easily sorted and located.

B1 pool and dart lounge. On the back right is a small kitchen. The photo on the back left is of Pennsylvania's Falling Water. I printed it on our plotter in honor of the 6.5 folks with Pennsylvania roots on station.

B1 movie lounge. The left bookshelf is filled with Betamax tapes.

B1 movie lounge DVD movie selection. All those yellow labels you see are part of the inventory project that I led at the start of the season. The board games on top of the shelves are duplicates or unlikely to be played.

On the lower level in B2, there is a craft room. I don't spend much time there, but some folks have been creating some amazing stuff. I think my only time there has been on the sewing machines to patch up my $5 pants from Taiwan. They are one of three pairs of pants I have for the year. The pockets were starting to tear and I lost a nail clipper through the hole. Unfortunately, they don't sell clippers in the store, but a kind soul gave me their extra pair.

Craft room. I have only used that first sewing machine.

The one big piece of B pod that I did not mention is that the B1 is our 'lifeboat'. The lifeboat is meant to ensure that there is a separate, protected space that we could use in case of a catastrophic loss of use of the rest of the station. It’s protected behind fireproof, insulated doors. In addition to redundant power, the lifeboat contains redundant heating, water, wastewater, communications, cooking, and berthing space. It certainly wouldn’t be comfortable, but the entire winterover crew could survive in the Lifeboat if necessary. During normal operations, the Lifeboat is just a normal wing of the station, hooked into standard station infrastructure. But in the event of an emergency, we could isolate all the systems mentioned above.

Generators in our Emergency Power Plant (EPP).