Rewind to 1980: diesel mechanic Johan Nortje was about to live his dream. He was to spend a year at the South African base in the Antarctic.
”The Antarctic has always intrigued me,” Nortje said.
But Nortje’s wife, Susan, discovered she was pregnant and asked Nortje to stay behind. Sadly, that baby was stillborn, but three others followed.
As the decades passed, Nortje travelled the world. As an artisan, his skill was in demand taking him to Iraq, Malawi, Angola, Nigeria and Mali.
With a worldwide shortage of diesel mechanics, he could have gone anywhere but Nortje never gave up on his fascination for the southern polar regions.
”I had [experienced] the extreme heat of Baghdad, now I wanted the extreme cold,” he said.
Life sometimes does give one second chances. Move forward 29 years.
”I was waiting for an opportunity to come along. By chance, five or six months ago, I was paging through one of our local newspapers, the Rustenburg Herald and noticed an ad about the South African base in the Antarctic. That’s when I applied again,” he said.
On December 9 an older, greyer Nortje was among the 2010 crew that left Cape Town aboard South Africa’s icebreaker polar research vessel, the 32-year-old SA Agulhas. The crew hopes to reach the Antarctic coastline around Christmas day. Johannesburg-born Nortje was impatient to get going.
”Believe me, I cannot wait. I was hoping we would be down there already,” he said.
Nortje’s personal circumstances are also different now.
”My youngest son, also Johan, is 21 and apprenticed to be an auto electrician. The others — Pienkie and Cicilia — are grown up now, married and with children,” said the 52-year-old.
Diesel mechanics play a critical role in ensuring that the weathermen, radar researchers and other scientists survive sub-zero temperatures for 15 months — or longer, if storms or pack ice block the annual voyage of the relief vessel.
Unfortunately, the diesel generators also mean that the South African base is part of the country’s excessive contribution to polluting the atmosphere with climate change gases, currently under negotiation at the other end of the world in Denmark.
But Nortje defends the generators: ”If it was not for diesel mechanics, nobody would be able to go to the Antarctic. The ship needs a diesel mechanic to get going. The base has three generators and we maintain the skidoos used by the meteorologists and the scientists.”
Nortje and fellow diesel mechanic Marlon Manko will maintain a variety of bulldozers and five Challenger caterpillars. All the machinery runs on polar diesel designed to withstand low temperatures. The diesel is pumped from the Agulhas into massive 50 000-litre containers on sledges perched on the ice shelf towering over the research ship.
”All these machines are our lifeline,” Nortje said. ”One scrapes ice away from the base camp. Another is equipped to pick up ice so we can melt it for water. There’s plenty of ice but no fresh water in the Antarctic. We must make our own.”
Application forms for the 2010-2011 overwintering team are at www.sanap.ac.za. An interview with the 2010 crew will be broadcast on Christmas Eve at 9pm on SAfm