Today Russell, Jake (the newest addition to our team who has arrived to assist with the packing of our equipment and securing the E-Base for the winter), and I went to the morning services at the nearby Russian Orthodox Church that overlooks Bellingshausen Station. Built after the breakup of the USSR, this rustic building was constructed of Sitka pine logs in Siberia, which were then taken apart, shipped thousands of miles down to Bellingshausen, and reassembled, on a rocky spine above both the Chilean and Russian research stations. Scrambling across the mud, sand, and rocks to hike up to the church, it’s something of a Calvary just to reach the door.

Once at the steps of the church, we dipped our feet into the water bucket—a common feature at every building here to help keep the ever-present mud from inside buildings—and made our way into the church, which was actually quite small, considering its grand imposing visage, compared to the rude metal structures of the base buildings with wind-scoured exteriors. As an accommodation to the Antarctic and its formidable winds, large chains ran up the walls, solidly connecting the structure to the foundation. Brass and copper fixtures and candle holders, surrounded by iconographic images of Jesus, Mary, and a pantheon of Russian Saints glowed golden in the light that streamed through the small windows. The three of us, all wearing our damp windshell jackets and pants, stood in front of the small altar as three Russians, part of the support crew, clothed in equally rough clothes, came clomping in with their rubber boots, which they removed in the vestibule, and they joined us as we all stood in stocking feet.

Two priests emerged from the vestry, clad in high-collared gold brocade robes. They began what proved to be a lengthy liturgical call and response, added to by the occasional “Amen” from the Russians. Speaking little Russian beyond “hello,” and “thank you,” much—actually all—of the verbal portion of the service was lost on me, but the mood, as all of us stood in the warm building, breathing in the aroma of the candles, listening to centuries-old chants, couldn’t help but make one contemplative.

As I glimpsed at my Russian neighbors, support crew for the nearby base, all with work-worn hands and windburned faces, I thought about the events of the previous day, when a crewman from a Brazilian ship had fallen overboard. All the research stations from various countries, Russia, Korea, Uruguay, and Chile, had responded to the radio calls from the ship, and helicopters and zodiac boats were scanning the water for the missing person. You don’t survive for long in Antarctic waters (which are about 30 degrees Fahrenheit), and it was soon obvious that this would be a search for a body, but everyone, including those of us at the E-Base, were ready to do anything to assist. Every base here has its own country’s flag flying, but at no time did anyone ask what country the missing person came from—out here in the Antarctic, there are no border considerations—that’s for politicians thousands of miles away.

At the end of the service, the two priests whispered among themselves, and both walked towards us. Had they spotted us as heretics? No, in halting English they indicated that they wanted us to ring the church bell to announce the end of the service. The Russians in the audience nodded in agreement, and the next thing Russell, Jake, and I knew, we were all led up a narrow ladder in a corner of the vestry, and after opening a trapdoor, we found ourselves up in the onion-dome of the steeple, where, high above the Russian base, we each took turns pulling on various ropes, sending peals of enthusiastic, if amateur, melodic clanging over the hills, and beyond, all the way to Maxwell Bay,

As an American, the old adage from the Great Depression of the 1930’s, “Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without” takes on a certain resonance here in the Antarctic.

At the E-Base and E-Home, everything that can be recycled is recycled, and not in the sense of putting down your second cup of coffee, lightheartedly separating milk cartons from newspapers, leaning out the back door, and tossing them in their respective recycling bins, but recycling in the sense of pulling on rubber boots, bundling up in cold-weather clothing and wandering around Bellingshausen scouring trash, scrap wood, packing materials, etc, and looking at everything with a gimlet eye to determine what can be reused or turned into something useful. There are no handy hardware or camping supply stores in the Antarctic, and if you need something, you have to be creative.

Plastic loading pallets left from a resupply ship to one of the international research stations in the area form the floor of the E-Home, and a rusting pile of decades old angle-iron and steel cable become, with the help of a hacksaw and some physical effort, a full set of tent stakes and guy-line to secure the E-Home against strong storm winds. A futon bed frame with broken legs, thanks to some clever handiwork from Russell, is turned into a wall-mounted desk at the E-Base. Scrapwood of various sizes and lengths form the frame of our solar water heating system.

When one of the wind generator tailfins broke, we weren’t able to call a friendly toll-free telephone number to order a replacement—instead we wired it back together with some (found) steel cable, and soon the generator was aloft and generating electricity again.

Even the cardboard box from the crew of the ship Vavilov that once contained a going-away present of fresh fruit (alas, the fruit is long gone…hello Scurvy!) is now, after being cut down to form a flat surface, serving as the floor mat for our muddy boots as we enter the E-Base.

Making do, Antarctic style…

Well imagine that happens when you can’t head home and have a nice warm shower and a change of clothes to make you feel instantly better. Imagine not being able to turn on the light at the flick of a switch.

The past few days have been really tough. There has been a constant icy wind and it hasn’t stopped raining. Everything I have is wet and I feel cold to the core. But in order for our Antarctic life to get any easier we’ve had to persevere… to work outside in the driving rain and freezing cold to get our two wind turbines up and running.

It’s simple really. Without our turbines we would have no electricity. That means no light, no heat and no power for our computers to tell you about this truly amazing experience.

Today we finally finished putting up those turbines. We now have a power supply – and even better we have a power supply that is clean, green and 100% renewable. Keeping our commitment to live off renewable energy in Antarctica has been incredibly hard but there is light at the end of the tunnel.

When our batteries are full and the turbines are still generating electricity we convert that extra energy to heat through an electric heater. As I sit here writing I can hear this little heater whirring away – so warming the air around me ever so slightly.

It will never have the same visual effect as burning logs in an open fire on a dark Winter’s night but this little fan heater as brought more warmth to me than the flames of a thousand fires.

It’s difficult to describe how much we have struggled to get to this point but I’m proud to say that, despite everything, we are here in Antarctica living off renewable energy.

Being out here really does make you think about how much we take for granted.