SPEAKER_00
0:37
Blythe Milligan here, Gray Sharky, everything is logistics, probably presented by SPI Logistics. And uh this is our favorite segment of the Freight Friends episode, and that is Source to Porch, where we each pick a product and trace how it gets from point A all the way to your porch. Um, so I've got a Sri Lanka story. I've saved that for you know the end of the show, but you have one that I want to get to first.
SPEAKER_01
1:01
Yeah, let's do yours last because yours is gonna be pretty good. Mine is an interesting source to porch story, and it's mostly the porch exists in the middle of Antarctica. So this is actually Antarctica. I knew you would, I knew you'd love this, and I think you were gone when this happened. So I I almost wonder if you missed this situation happening. So about a month ago, there's an iceberg hanging out in Antarctica, and it just had a couple containers on it. And people were like, Where did these things come from? Because they didn't wash up on container or onto an iceberg. They were just sitting on top of an iceberg, and that's when we all got to learn about a little something called the, and I'm gonna say this wrong, probably the new mayor station three, which is a German Antarctic research station run by specific institute inside of Germany. Well, outside of Germany, I guess you could say. Um, so basically, what this is is it's a port, theoretically, it's a location where they can drop containers off for all the researchers that are in Antarctica and use this like port or station to move things around. It's uh the first of two stations now that are in the area. Um, and it's moved repeatedly because of clearly the area it's in. So oftentimes I've shelves move, which spoiler alert, let me tell you how this story ends. Um, and or often snow just buries them completely. Uh, and they're used year-round for again polar science, it's not just people hanging out, it's about 50 people that are stationed at this uh specific location, and it uses uh around 15 or so uh hydraulic legs to like lift itself up uh during times of the year where the snow gets like too high. Uh so it's basically like standing on stilts. And I can I can send you pictures later if you want to like put them up. Um, or if you Google it, you can see some cool pictures of it as well. Uh they focus on ozone monitoring there, of course, uh Earth's magnetic field, all that fun stuff. Um, but what's actually a fun fact about this is uh once a year this uh snow gets so high uh and the Empire penguins start like colonizing in the area. So every year, like the the crew gets a good time to just watch all the penguins migrate and hang out. Um, trying to remember what that penguin movie was called, but it's those same penguins in Antarctica. If you're looking for it's it's N-E-U-M-A-Y-E-R station. Um, and it's used for yeah, moving things around in that specific area. So usually they bring extra spare parts, food, fuel. It's a big fuel spot in particular. Um, and again, oftentimes can be berries that use this like legs to actually lift itself out of the ground. Uh, it freezes over every winter, and that's when the nice penguins come and hang out. And during that winter time, too, as you know, as we talked about the opposite side of the world in the past, uh, it has polar nights, right? It's just no sun from basically right now, late May to July, uh, the end of July. So right now they're uh they probably think it's nighttime if they were listening to this. So shout out to all the new mayor station people who don't know what time it is. And uh so basically, uh uh what happened originally was in January, uh they had moved uh, I think six or seven containers uh about a couple hundred meters from the coast just to get them ready for a waste pickup. Uh and then all of a sudden uh shelf broke and they had a big blizzard that came through. And when it cleared uh about eight days later, the staging place was just gone. The whole shelf of ice, about 500 meters, actually just you know caved off and fell into the sea, taking seven containers along with it. Um, and of course, they were able to chase that down. So they had it get the big problem with these is that there was again fuel and waste in them. So they were really, I think, nervous about there being some type of like spill or situation. So they're able to finally track them down. A few of them did fall off and sink, uh, a few of them were still on there. Uh and now uh there's new regulation that basically uh they they have the the ship has to be a certain distance away moving forward, um, just in case an ice shelf falls off again, which you know warring, who knows? Um, but it is cool. If you look at the pictures, like it's like they're just like little baby ants of containers that sitting on this giant ice shelf. Oh, yeah, you found it perfect. Um, and then I think if there's like a fuel container, like trying to pick it up in there too, yeah. So, hey, you know, there's I just think that's so silly. Like there's hanging out. Imagine like being a polar bear, and you're just like, it's just me and these little containers. So yeah, why are they down there? Because everything and everywhere is logistics, and even those uh doing the science down in Antarctica, whether or not you want to believe, you know, that's the end of the earth, that's up to you. You know, maybe it's flat, maybe that's where the wall is. But uh, we're down there doing research, and uh that's how they they send them, of course, things and beforehand as of a couple months ago, whenever they have waste, they would just move it to the side, but now they gotta wait till ships are close in order to do so.
SPEAKER_00
6:43
So yeah, I I think one of the coolest parts about Antarctica, literally and figuratively, about Antarctica is that they don't necessarily have, from what I understand, they don't have a traditional port. Um, and so they these icebergs are essentially the port. And so they put these containers as close to the edge as they can because the ships that will pick them up, they get as close to the iceberg as they can, and then they have a crane that comes off of the ship in order to either pick up or deliver. And, you know, they're probably in, you know, with with this image that we're seeing, you know, picking up waste, picking up um things that are no longer needed because they can't leave anything there. You're not even, from what I understand, you're not even allowed to um like pee on the ice because it's just such a scientific zone that it's so cold that it your pee is just going to just stay there because it's not gonna get like washed away by any rain or anything like that. It's just gonna stay there for forever.
SPEAKER_01
7:45
Um if you go to that other picture that shows it from like above, it's imagine just like there being a blizzard and waking up and being like, hey, where'd that go?
SPEAKER_00
7:56
Ernest Shackleton remembers, you know, or he did. And it's like a great book if you love logistics and you love Antarctica type stuff. Um, Ernest Shackleton uh was the captain of the endurance ship. They famously uh were trying to do a South Pole mission. Um they crashed before they could even you know reach the the South Pole, but they survived every single spoiler alert. It's probably one of the greatest survival stories of all time. A great 10 out of 10 book. Um sorry, go ahead. I just have to see that as an opportunity because that book is so good.
SPEAKER_01
8:28
No, it's just like, you know, you know me, the ocean already freaks me out a little bit. Like I can't imagine waking up and being like, oh, okay, that's fun.
SPEAKER_00
8:37
Well, he in a lot of the the book they talk about, you know, the ice flows and how you know that you could be on top of an iceberg like this, but because there's so much of it that you don't see, um, something could impact it, something could, you know, crash into it, and the whole iceberg could flip. And so for Shackleton and a lot of his crew, you know, this happened frequently where they would set up camp. Like imagine like losing, you know, imagine your ship just being, you know, just stuck in the ice. And then imagine it just being crushed by the ice to the point where like one day it's just gonna sink to the bottom, which the Discovery Channel actually just recently discovered it within the last year, um, and had like this uh, you know, this special edition where they they showed the ship and what it looks like at the bottom of the ocean. First time it's been seen since it actually sunk. Um, but he imagine like all of that happening and then being like, okay, I'm gonna set up camp. And then you set up camp, and then you have to have people watch guard 24 hours a day because if the ice starts shifting, then everybody immediately has to get up and grab everything that they can in order to move to the area where the ice isn't shifting. It's just a constant, just like mental game. And I I I love Antarctica, so I love that you you you brought this story. Um, because I think it's just such a fascinating look into the human psyche, too. And I think that what happens a lot on Antarctica, we're gonna see a lot of these uh situations happen in space. So I think that, you know, we're from whatever these issues that are happening in Antarctica, you're you're gonna, I mean, that there's what's to say that this won't happen on like a meteor um or you know, part of a planet, uh, you know, didn't trying to set up these different like ports and ways to deliver supplies and how you know the in just extreme environment impacts all of that. So yeah, super cool.
SPEAKER_01
10:31
Just imagine like the bunch of buzz leggers just walking out of those containers.
SPEAKER_00
10:36
Well, like what is that? Like a like a King Kong or Godzilla. Um I mean that that's where you enter the uh the other world, I think is I don't know the exact phrase that they use, but yeah, that that's how you enter the the upside down world that King Kong lives in.
SPEAKER_01
10:51
Yeah, you're right. I love Godzilla. Don't get me started with Godzilla. That's like that's a low-key thing people know about me. I am a big Godzilla fan.
SPEAKER_00
11:00
Oh, so from uh they had some epic merch in Japan, obviously, around Godzilla. So we got we did get a couple things, um, because they had this entire like mall, like a you know, seven-story mall, and one of the floors was like Nintendo and Sega and Godzilla and just all of those like different fan franchises, bunch of stamps too, which is cool.
SPEAKER_01
11:23
Don't you love how they put the food like when you go to restaurants and stuff, they put the food like already made so you can like see. Did you do you know I'm talking about?
SPEAKER_00
11:32
Yeah, yeah, they do that in Miami too.
SPEAKER_01
11:35
Oh yeah, that's real south for me, dude. You can be there once.
SPEAKER_00
11:40
Key was as far as maybe we should do a a a story on this in the future, too. But there's a whole like market for um it's it's like the fake food that you can show as a display for customers walking by. Like it's it's an actual like craft that people that you know try to eat looks it obviously it doesn't look as good as like the real thing, but it looks pretty freaking close to where you have to like touch it just to see if it's like real or not.
SPEAKER_01
12:07
At that show, I met a girl who like that's what she was there getting leads to take photos for of food for like their you know websites and stuff like that. I I go, let me ask you this is the mashed potato ice cream thing legit? And she's like, she she basically like read me for Phil. She's like, Yeah, if you're not a good photographer, and I was like, Whoa, shots fired. I guess it's true.
SPEAKER_00
12:34
I I've heard glue too. Glue is another one that like you show like melting ice cream, and yeah, ugh. If you've heard companies mentioned on everything is logistics, chances are Cargo Rex is where buyers go next to keep researching. That is the point. Cargo Rex gives the logistics companies a place to be discovered, understood, and shortlisted long after an episode ends. Set up your company profile at cargorex.io and make it easier for buyers to find you.
