McMurdo Bound

Leaving the US now seems like a month ago, although it was only this past Monday (5 days ago)! The trip from my hometown of Columbus to New Zealand was uneventful although the flight from LAX (left Monday evening at 11pm) to Auckland (13hrs, arriving Wednesday 6am) was nothing short of exhausting. It was a quick trip through customs and onward and forward to the largest city of the south island, Christchurch! By the time we arrived I was ready for bed, but the excitement of being in NZ for the first time got the better of me and I was off to explore downtown chich. After taking in a few cultural stops I somehow ended up in an Irish bar called Bailey’s, drinking Guinness with a couple guys from Wisconsin. Did I really just fly for about 24hrs and end up spending my evening drinking Irish beer in an Irish pub with a two dudes from Kenosha and Sun Prairie. Apparently I did.

The next day, Thursday, was filled with preparations for the trip down to McMurdo Station, on Ross Island, Antarctica. First stop was for flu shots and next thing we were all in the CDC for our ECW issue. Yes it became immediately apparent that in working with military contractors, everything and everywhere was going to have a three letter name that makes no damn sense and the hell if anyone is going to take the time to explain what it all means. If they did, then what would be the point of having the abbreviations in the first place?!? Well, for those individuals not in the ‘know’, we were issued our Extreme Cold Weather gear at the Central Distribution Center… where there were more bib-overalls and ill-fitting boots than anywhere else, I’m certain. Our orders as of 15:00 Thursday afternoon: to report back at 5:45 Friday morning with no more than 40lbs of checked baggage and wearing our full complement of ECW and to sitting patiently on a military runway in southern NZ, staring up at our C-17 taxi-ride to the south pole… and presumably to sweat our asses off, as well.

Even though I’ve been informed by reputable sources (ok, just one source. And it’s my Dad, so not exactly a reputable source after all) that the C-17 is a piece of shit compared to the old C-130 Hercules, we still made the 5.5hour trip from chich to McMurdo in one piece… that amounts to about half the time that slow-ass, 4-prop, over-crowded bucket of bolts, C-130 ever could. The trip down to the ice was as spectacular and breathtaking as any other I’ve ever taken, owing greatly to the clear skies we enjoyed for a majority of the journey. As we approached the continent and the transatlantic range was visible on the horizon, the captain allowed a few of us up to the cockpit where the vista of the mountains, glaciers and sea ice was nothing short of gorgeous.

Arriving to McMurdo, the weather at the station was about 30F, clear skies and almost no wind. I couldn’t believe it; is this really the weather on Antarctica? While it was a prefect way to be greeted, it was short lived to be sure. As I hammer out my first blog from the ice, the runway is closed (Condition 1 white out) the wind chill is back down to a balmy –40F and I’m holed up in the Crary lab, where I’ll call home for the next 10 weeks. For what it’s worth, when the view across the runway is clear, I have a clear view of the mountains surrounding McMurdo from my office window. Unbelievable.

Once I adjust to the 24hrs of daylight, perhaps I’ll actually be able to sleep for more than a couple hrs at a time and these blogs will become more coherent…. Yea right. Afterall, if you think about it, by the time some of you read these words, I won’t have written them yet.