On the Ice

As the title of the post implies, I have made it to McMurdo! And since my last blog post was short and relatively devoid of pictures, I'll try to make up for it with this post. The call I was half-expecting to receive at 4:30 am this morning, saying that the flight was canceled and we were on a 24-hour delay, never came. The shuttles arrived at the hotel just after 5 am and we were at the Antarctic Terminal by 6 am. The next hour was busy getting into our ECW gear, repacking bags, packing a boomerang bag (more on that in a moment) and labeling everything as either a checked bag or a carry-on bag. Each person was allowed a total of 85 lbs of checked luggage (which included some of your ECW gear that you wouldn't necessarily need right away). This included the contents of your boomerang bag, which is a bag that you pack with items you would need if the flight boomerangs (takes off and cannot land in McMurdo and must return to Christchurch). Because all your checked bags are packed on a pallet on the plane, they do not want to unpack the plane to get to your bags and then have to repack it again the next day if your flight boomerangs. Their rule is to hold on to your bags for up to three days before they will unpack the plane to pull them off. Thus, they allow you a smaller "boomerang" bag they will give back to you when you deplane if the flight does have to turn around. Most people pack toiletries and a few changes of clothes in the bag to hold them over until they can get their checked bags returned to them.

After shuffling things around, repacking a few things and ensuring that I was under the 85lb checked-bag limit, it was time to load up and head to the terminal to check in for the flight.

Obligatory picture in front of the Antarctic Passenger Terminal

Check-in involves showing your passport and weighing all your checked bags to make sure you don't exceed the 85lbs, then sending them on to be screened. You then grab all of your carry-on bags and ECW gear and, holding all of that stuff, get on the scale yourself so they can get an accurate measurement of how much weight will be on the plane. Once all of this is complete, you are given a number and told a time to report back for boarding; our time was 7:30am. People usually leave the terminal in search of a quick breakfast before boarding and we did the same, venturing over to one of the local breakfast places to enjoy a quick omelette.

Boarding began at 7:45am  and involved the typical airport screening of sending all your carry-on bags through the x-ray scanner and walking through a metal detector. Once you have retrieved/repacked everything, it is then on to a bus for a short ride to the plane.

Boarding the bus for the short ride to the plane.

Once again, we flew down on a C-17, which meant about a five hour plane ride between Christchurch and McMurdo.

Boarding the C-17 and getting our lunch.

There were over 70 people headed south on this trip, of which about 2/3 were headed for the South Pole (or "Polies" as we refer to them). There were not enough seats along the sides of the plane for everyone so a pallet of seats was loaded on at the front of the plane to accommodate the extra people.

My seat on the plane with my carry-ons "mostly" under my seat.

Picture from the front of the plane looking back. The Pallet of seats was in front of the seatainer. My seat was on the far left just behind the seatainer.

Similar to last time, we were handed a brown bag with lunch and a bottle of water to hold us over until we got to McMurdo. It was by no means a small lunch. I was beginning to wonder if the inside of the bag was actually bigger than the outside of the bag because there seemed to be no bottom. Needless to say, no one was starving when they got off the plane.

Lunch ... and this was after I had already eaten one bag of potato chips and the other half of the sandwich. (No, I did not eat the hand sanitizer).

Unlike the trip last year (and much to my disappointment), there was a solid cloud deck over Antarctica and no one could see anything but clouds while we were in the air. After what seemed like a relatively short trip (but was almost exactly five hours), we landed at Phoenix Airfield and taxied a short distance before walking off the plane. Once again, it was amazing to step off onto the Ross Ice Shelf and look around to see Observation Hill and Ross Island. Mt Erebus and the Transantarctic Mountains were mostly hidden by the clouds but their bases could still be seen. I had time for a few pictures before we had to board our ride to McMurdo.

Disembarking from the C-17.

I'm generally not one to take selfies but this seemed appropriate.

Looking off towards Black Island.

It's about 8 miles between Phoenix and McMurdo but it takes 40 minutes to go between the two. Our mode of transportation was the Cress, which was basically a large trailer pulled by a giant tractor and it goes .... slow.

The Cress, our ride to McMurdo.

Close up of the tractor that pulls the trailer.

View inside the Cress.

The first stop is always the Chalet where everyone is greeted, given a roughly 30-minute briefing, followed by getting their room keys, and being released to go find their dorm rooms and lab space.

Our group heading into the Chalet for our arrival briefing.

The arrival briefing.

It's now almost 10pm here, with cloudy skies, snow showers and a lovely temperature of just 14 degrees Fahrenheit. The sun is still up (and will be for the remainder of my time here) so it's time to get used to sleeping with some light coming around the window shade again. Tomorrow begins the first of our (many) training sessions starting at 7:30 am. We did see one of our sites (Willie) on the way to McMurdo and were a bit surprised by what we saw, but that's a story for the next blog entry ....