Among Penguins: A Bird Man in Antarctica

6. Coffee House

37 6. Coffee House eee The Coffee House used to be the officers’ club, back when McMurdo Station served as a U.S. Navy base. Now, it’s a quiet place, with subtle pop rock playing to a backdrop of vintage skis and sleds hanging on lacquered walls. In the T-shaped, windowless Quonset hut, the atmosphere is soothingly dark, giving the illusion of evening. People murmur around tables, sip wine and coffee, and act civilized. It’s a good place to feel like an underachiever. Most of the clientele have climbed Everest, been knighted, discovered something new to science, or run naked across the Gobi Desert. You know the type, the people you read about in magazines. David Ainley, the well-respected king of penguins, fit right in. I found him nursing a glass of wine at a corner table. Gray-haired and mustached, Ainley may know more about penguins than anyone. He’s been studying them in Antarctica for the past thirty years, publishing books and articles, and building a deserved reputation as the penguin man. Along the way, he developed the PenguinScience project, which now encompasses several study sites at different colonies around the Ross Sea. I’d be working at one of these sites, Cape Crozier, while he would spend the season at a separate penguin colony, Cape Royds. The only time we overlapped would be during gear-up in McMurdo. I slid into an adjacent chair and introduced myself. Ainley’s eyes showed quiet intelligence. His sentences were interspersed with thoughtful silences, unconcerned with keeping up conversation, but his words commanded attention. Every so often, someone would stop by our table and say hi, paying their respects to the great scientist. He held court at peace, stroking a snowy white mustache, nodding and shaking hands throughout the evening, sipping his wine, thinking about penguins. 38 Noah Strycker Kirsten arrived, then Michelle, who had touched down on a later flight. Though we’d already spent a few days together in New Zealand, I was especially keen to get to know them both, as we’d be essentially locked up together, in cramped conditions, for months. I needn’t have worried. Michelle and Kirsten effused friendliness and competence. They’d both spent prior seasons working with penguins at Crozier. “Shouldn’t have had that extra Frosty Boy,” Kirsten moaned. “A Frosty Boy a day keeps the doctor away,” chuckled Michelle. “Tuck in to that ice cream while you can,” advised David. “Pretty soon you’ll be eating snow instead.” “Hey, chipped blue ice makes a great margarita,” said Michelle. “Did you hear about the group that received a Christmas box labeled as cooking oil?” asked Kirsten. “Customs didn’t even open it!” “Good idea,” I mused. The single McMurdo Station store imposed strict limits on the amount of alcohol one could buy on any given day, and its selection was limited. Conversation turned toward the future. “Tomorrow morning, before we go, we should all hike up Obs Hill,” Kirsten suggested. “I’m game,” said Michelle. “Got to balance out that Frosty Boy somehow.” Observation Hill, overlooking McMurdo Station from a height of about one thousand feet, offers a twenty-minute hard scramble up rocky trail and snow patches behind the maintenance buildings. At the summit, a weathered wooden cross memorializes Robert Scott and others who perished on the British South Pole expedition around 1910. “The view from Obs Hill is almost as good as Pat’s Peak, where we do whale watches at Crozier,” Kirsten said. “If you can mind the cold,” Ainley added. “Nothing compares to the view of a quarter-million penguins spread out below you.” 39 Coffee House The anticipation was almost unbearable. “Cheers to that!” I said, raising my glass of wine. “To a great season,” agreed David. “Agreed,” chimed in Kirsten. “And good weather,” said Michelle. “Well, with one or two good storms for the record,” I winked. We talked late, over bottles of wine and appetizers, with the singular enthusiasm of expectation: planning, scheming, worrying, and wondering what awaited us in the months ahead. Eventually, I said goodbye to Ainley. We’d meet up back at McMurdo three months later for the return U.S. flight. He wished Michelle, Kirsten, and me luck. When I finally stumbled off to my dorm room, it was 1 a.m. On the streets of McMurdo Station, the sun shone at a low...