A Fond Farewell

My last night at McMurdo has arrived. I’m taking the next C-141 headed north, destination Christchurch, New Zealand. Returning to the land of starry nights and fresh veggies (the last time I experienced nighttime was November 10^th!). My final few weeks of the season were so hectic I like to compare them to the last couple weeks before my dissertation defense. Even so, although the hours were long, the experience was extremely rewarding…and a lot of fun too.

In our final big push of work we headed out to Cape Royds several days in a row to collect a final total of 450gallons of lake water. This was not such an easy task. We filled 5-gallon carboys one at a time using a small generator and pump that would fill each 5-gallon container in about 10minutes. We would then strap this container (weighing around 45lbs) to an external pack frame and hike it up-hill to the helo pad. At the helo pad we had placed 55-gallon drums that we would fill 5-gallons at a time. All together we filled 9 55-gallon drums, which were then transported by sling-load back to the Crary labs at McMurdo station. Check out some of the pics below for the sling-load transport. In order to hook the sling load to the helo one of us would have to run underneath a hovering helo and physically hook the net to a cable hanging just a couple feet from the bottom runner. It was really exciting, and one thing I learned is hanging out underneath a B212 helo hovering just a few feet above your head is not as much fun as it sounds.

Once the water was transported back to Crary, the real work began. In front of us we had 450gallons of some of the greenest, smelliest water around to filter and processes. Estimating from the volume of our columns and the flow-rate through our pumps we were going to have to run our filters and columns 24/7 if we were going to get through all this water. Being the night-owl of the group I volunteered for the graveyard shift. The cool thing about McMurdo is it being sunny all day it was not difficult to get accustomed to working from 6pm to 8am. In fact, many people choose to work this shift and in order to serve them, the galley serves a full-on midnight meal for the night-shift workers, called MidRats. If it weren’t for my week of working the night shift I would not have learned the secret of MidRats: Since most flights arrive from New Zealand in the late afternoon or early evening, the fresh food is not processed through the kitchen in time for dinner but it is ready for MidRats….so I’ve come to learn that the midnight meal at McMurdo usually has the best and freshest food and the fewest people to share!

So now I’ve made the transition back to days, and I’m usually asleep by MidRats, and it is indeed time to head home. The lab is bare, our samples are already en route to Ohio, and I’m on the next flight home. This being my first blog-experience I have to admit it’s been a great means of communicating my experience to many of my friends and relatives and I want to thank all of you who took the time to read and to comment on my rambling prose and fuzzy pictures. But don’t worry, this isn’t over yet…check back sometime late February for pictures from New Zealand where I might have to switch back to nights just to enjoy the stars!!


Peace - Ryan