In 1970/71, I spent six months working at Hallett Station, Antarctica. I was to collect specimens to examine the global spread of DDT. I also studied penguins.

Hallett Station was a small joint US/New Zealand station at a colony of 50,000 pairs of penguins. It was also a reject station for the Antarctic. We were to spend 6 months at the station. They were to give us a movie to watch each day. Instead, we had 12 movies. These included such treasures as “Adios Gringo”, a real classic from which I only remember the hero saying that he would take revenge with his last six bullets after which he shot his enemies with about 35 bullets. It was OK because the hero won. The space movie was a little lame because you could actually see the fingers pick up the toy rocket and move it across the screen. The one we all loved because it had so little emotional tensions was “Monkeys Go Home”. I still love this.

For 12 Navy enlistees and two naïve scientists (Chuck and myself), the Navy also provided 49 Bibles, including the entire multi-volume Interpreters Bible, a treasure in any household and one I grew up with. We only needed one per person.

In late January, the ice flows moved in and out with the tide. In the evening, we had the regular evening movie. I can’t remember which of the 12 movies they were watching. Chuck and I decided to look at the ice.

We saw a beautiful iceberg and ran back for our cameras. We wandered onto the flows, taking photographs. Then, Chuck said, “wait.”

The flow that we were on was beginning to move out with the tide. Chuck couldn’t swim very well and was worried.

Chuck said, “Jump!” and I jumped to a smaller flow (a 2’x2’ piece of ice) and immediately fell into the water. I crawled back to the original flow. I was concerned because Antarctic Oceans are extremely cold.

We waited.

Eventually the others came from their movie. We called. They came and sent out a rope around a 50 gallon drum. They pulled me in but I was already wet and cold. They pulled Chuck in. Just as he arrived in shore, he raised his arm in exaltation and fell in the water.

We took warm showers and enjoyed being back in “civilization.”