Arrived in McMurdo

As you can tell from the title of this post, I have made it to McMurdo! The first day (Tuesday) was a busy day that began with the shuttle departing the hotel for the airport at 5:45 am. We showed up to the airport about 20 minutes later and immediately went to the clothing distribution center to begin putting on all of our gear, labeling our luggage and packing our boomerang bag (more details on this shortly). We also filled out our departure card, which had our name and passport information and allowed us to get our "boarding pass". Once we were in our gear, it was time to grab a cart, load up our luggage, carry-on(s) and boomerang bag, and line up to check in for the flight. Checking in involved handing our passport and departure card to one of the Air Force crewmen and then weighing our checked luggage and our boomerang bag. The combined weight of the luggage and boomerang bag could not exceed 85 pounds, otherwise you had to ship stuff back, leave it, or move stuff to your carry on bag.  So what is the boomerang bag? The boomerang bag is used in case your flight "boomerangs", meaning the aircraft takes off and has to turn around at some point in flight and return to Christchurch because the weather in McMurdo became too bad to land in. If this happens, your checked bags are not returned to you when you depart the plane, only your boomerang bag is returned to you. This helps save time in loading/unloading bags, especially if your flight gets rescheduled to leave the following day. If your flight continues to get delayed for more than three days, you can then go back and pick up your checked bags.

After I checked in my bags, it was my turn to stand on the scale (with my carry-on bag) so they could  get an accurate measurement of how much weight they would have to balance on the aircraft. After all that, it was time for a break. By this time, it was now around 7:00 and the coffee shops around the corner were opening. We had a quick bite to eat and had to return by 7:30 to finish the security screening with the Airport Security Service (for some reason, they didn't go by an acronym). They x-rayed our bags and we had to walk through a metal detector before boarding the bus to the plane. Then it was a short trip across the street and onto the airfield to the aircraft. We ended up boarding a C-17 aircraft, one of the other types of wheeled aircraft that they fly to the ice and is also the faster aircraft. They handed us sack lunches and bottled water and we boarded the aircraft. I managed to snap a couple quick pictures before getting on.

The C-17 aircraft we flew to McMurdo.

Once we boarded the aircraft, we took our seats along the outsides and buckled up in preparation for takeoff. All the cargo that was flying down with us was secured down the center of the aircraft and we sat facing it. Around 9am, we were airborne. After we reached cruising altitude, we were able to get up and walk around the aircraft and take some pictures.

View from the back of the plane looking forward.

There were two windows on each side of the aircraft and as started flying over Antarctica, people started crowding around to get some pictures of the scenery below. To say it was stunning doesn't do it justice and while I attempted to capture it in pictures, nothing compares to seeing it in person. There are no roads, no animal tracks, nothing but pristine snow covered mountains and windswept glaciers as far as the eye can see.

My first view of Antarctica.

One of the many mountain ranges we flew over.

After almost exactly five hours, we touched down in Antarctica. I grabbed my stuff, cameras at the ready, and walked off the plane onto the ice, pausing to take a few shots before boarding the behemoth vehicle that took us to McMurdo.

A quick view of the airfield we landed on.

The "vehicle" that took us to McMurdo. If you look just to the left of the vehicle, you can see Mount Erebus in the distance, one of the most active volcanoes in Antarctica.

After about a 45 minute drive, we arrived in McMurdo and were ushered into the Chalet where we were given a formal welcome, met some of the people in charge of the station and then were given our room assignments. After that, it was off to find our lab, see if we could find our equipment (we found all but two crates, which arrived yesterday) and then off to dinner (so much food! But that's a topic for a later blog) and the "bag drag" to get our luggage.

It's been a crazy couple of days since we got here, filled with lots of training and preparations for going into the field. I'll talk more about that, as well as life around McMurdo in some of my future blogs. And of course, lots more pictures to come!