by Gerhard Niklasch
The average '85 expedition member spent 700 hours away from home, viz. 140
hours as a female and 560 hours as a male. This first classification is not
particularly illuminating, so let's be a bit more specific. A total of 140 hours
went into travelling there and back, which leaves 560 hours in and around the
expedition area. These can be classified as follows:
- 190 hours asleep
- 140 hours eating / drinking (i.e. tea / coffee / water) / yawning /
swearing / following other calls of nature (I've been quite generous here)
- 20 hours cooking / washing up / tending and tidying camps / fetching water
- 60 hours underground
- 10 hours mending oversuits and other caving gear
- 21 hours carrying supplies, tackle, expedition gear uphill
- 5 hours carrying rubbish, tackle, expedition gear downhill
- 27 hours moving between campsites and carrying personal gear
- 4 hours surface surveying / drawing up surveys
- 7.5 hours on scientific work
- 30 minutes administrating
The time underground can be subdivided further according to the type of trip
(where I've counted abortions as what they were intended for - the same applies
to the "carrying" and "moving" entries above):
- 20 hours pushing and rerigging
- 14 hours surveying
- 12 hours detackling
- 5 hours photography
- 5 hours shaft-bashing
- 4 hours tourism
and "scientific work" splits up into:
- 6 hours dye detecting
- 40 minutes reading rain guages / altimeter
- 30 minutes looking at / collecting bits of rock
- 20 minutes chasing snails and insects
Add it up and (surprise, surprise) no less than 63 hours remain unaccounted
for. Most of these probably come under the heading "festering". The
precise use each person made of them is so varied that you'd better pick your
own selection from the following list of suggestions (delete when not applicable
and tick when substantial - due to possibility of overlap you may end up with
more than 63 hours):
- getting pissed
- throwing up
- showing off
- bathing / sunbathing
- walking / climbing
- reading sending / receiving letters / postcards
- taking / posing for: nice / ordinary / boring / sponsorship / embarrassing
pictures
- admiring the sunrise / sunset / stars / meteorites / milky way / rainbow /
clouds / mist / rain / hail / Picos / sea
- discussing yesterday's discoveries / tomorrow's discoveries / today's own
cock-ups / today's cock-ups of other people / quantum physics / Shakespeare
/ geology / hydrology / meteorology / vino / brandy / food / anatomy
- washing your hair / t-shirts / gear / caving underwear
- chasing cows / sheep / goats / tourists
- dozing
- flirting with the treasurer / Ukey / Margot / el jefe / Fred / Phil D. /
Phil S. / Julia
- producing / recording quotations for the logbook
Notes.
- These statistics are reliable 'cos I faked them myself.
- To simplify calculations, I've assumed 30 members and active guests, e.g.
by including Steve D. and John S. but omitting Lesley, or (equivalently)
counting each of them as 2/3.
- Total manhours are thus obtained by multiplying the above figures with 30,
e.g. 1800 manhours caving in total. To obtain manhours per day per member,
divide by 23.3, e.g. 2 hours 42 minutes festering per person per day.
- A total of 7.5 mandays for dye detecting may seem absurdly low. But bear
in mind that each Culiembro-trip also induces large contributions to
shopping, eating, tourist caving, bathing, admiring, taking pictures, dozing
and occasionally even sleeping....