Diamond Dust

"Antarctica is the darkest place where the sun doesn't set."

That was his assessment as we sat in warm and cozy interior of The Chapel of the Snows.  The blizzard of the night before had passed, and the day was piercing cold but bright.  Eight of us were discussing Acts, and the reality of being a Christian at the End of the Earth.  It was a quiet place, on a quiet morning, silent outside in the fathomless white, with no sound of insect, or bird, or traffic... not even a breath of wind.

A place of contrasts this.

The Chapel is the most beautiful building on post, having been built as a work of love by Navy craftsmen with left over wood back in 1956, and rebuilt after fires in 1978, and again in 1989.  It is a pleasant, quiet place, with a lovely view out the stained glass windows onto the frozen sound and the vistas of Mount Discovery and Mount Lister.

We eight out of 277 souls this morning, met when undoubtedly many times our number were sleeping off their visit to Gallagher's Pub the night before.  He made the assessment and other stories came from those who have been here before.  The painting in one lounge, of the continent and the slogan, "Antarctica: where God can't see your sins", which I saw a couple days later.  Of the fellow at dinner wearing a shirt saying "Hail Satan".  Of one man's co-worker who had crafted an inverted cross out of fine copper wire and silk.

I pray silently at dinner, and have found so far that almost all have paused to be silent while I do.  It is a courtesy I did not ask or demand, but they respect it.  I suspect that the satanic instances are as rare or rarer than even we eight, with spiritual indifference being the default, with a handful of decided materialists, humanists, and atheists.  I think that a small bit of wrath in a Satanist is louder than any ten other folk.  But the indifference is a far subtler danger.

The group are men of unusual candor.  Not a one of seems to be concerned with taking a bow after saying "Jesus" ten times more than another, being rather more humble.  Some tradesmen, some engineers, some logistics, but all seeming willing to confess the need for prayer to counter the temptations, of appetite or apathy, of a place that seems to be fairly ruthless about making sure the job gets done, but fairly philistine outside of work.

Drinking is indeed a regular feature of life here, for some a little and for others more.  There are bins of condoms in the main bathrooms of building 155.  Those who bring any of that business to work in any way tend to find themselves packed off on the next plane out, but whiskey heat is soothing where the whispering cold reigns.  

 Sunday brunch begins at 10:30 every weekend, and in a place a thousand miles from abundant food, this is the meal that everyone looks forward to, for the galley staff make it their most extravagant.  Several varieties of fruit, some of it fresh not canned, a half dozen kinds of cheese laid on a board, cold cuts and hot eggs and waffles to order, thinly sliced salmon ceviche.  The cold is hungry, and devours heat without malice or mercy.  Eating keeps our metabolism going, and I have noted how much more I find myself wanting to eat than I did in Afghanistan or Iraq.

I have dined amicably with an assortment of people.  First timers and most returnees alike are very open and curious.  There are indeed cliques here, but there is a general spirit of camaraderie that the place tends to bring out anyway.

The man, who is the acting chaplain, is an ordained Mormon deacon, appointed to conduct non-denominational services until the Navy rotates an actual chaplain in at main body operations in October.  It seems that when he asked who has authority over Antarctica, the answer was nobody.  He is a facility engineer married to a geologist. 

I talked at length with a doctor and PA who are married, and wintered over.  He was an Air Force physician, and we laughed over breakfast and the absurdities of working in Afghanistan.

I had dinner with a fire fighter and a galley hand.  Both are certified dive masters, though neither one has the specific dry suit training to conduct operations with the marine biologists.  The galley hand has lived a nomad life in New Zealand, Australia, Central America and the Caribbean, having returned to The Ice five times now, sometimes as a sheet metal worker, sometimes as a galley hand, having been a welder, an electrical installer, dive instructor, and an IT tech elsewhere.

I got to take a tour of the Crary Laboratory after brunch this week.  It is still mostly prepping for the main body influx when the real bulk of experiments begin.  But I had an interesting conversation with the professor in marine biology who is studying invertebrates.  This is her sixth year.  

 A slight framed  woman, she kept her hands deep in her warm pockets while I handled the creatures in the touch tank while she spoke of giant arctic arthropods, and snails of exceptional size, of biological antifreeze, and magic (her word) by which the snails make their shells out of sea water, and of diving untethered.

Beneath the frozen sea, the pellucid caverns of ice drape flows through water clear as crystal, down into the benthic deeps.  She said that the limit is about 38 minutes before cold and pressure and blood gas mixture demand a return to the world above.  She laughed as she rubbed her hands together, cold even in the lab.  

 I asked her why she keeps going down again.  She fixed my eye, and said because it is magic. 

A place of contrasts.

The sun still sets yet, but night is short and twilight long.  We have perhaps one more chance this   If weather and clouds are favorable, the heavens are glorious, with stars like nails in the deep of the sky.

season to see auroras, with a solar burst forecast next weekend.

You can almost fall into it.

But were you to miss the mornings after a blizzard... those long mornings with the sunlight describing the Royal Society Range on the far horizon, and Arrival Heights, and Observation Hill with Scott's cross on top, for that long slow frozen moment before the green flash of dusk or the amber vermilion magenta steak of dawn... were you to miss that, you might miss the magic heartbeats where the air is still enough and dry enough and cold enough that the tiniest drops of moisture freeze into impossibly small prisms, casting rainbows throughout the sky. 

Diamond Dust they call it.  And it is Magic.