big blue boots

Random Fact of the Day: Did you know the ozone hole, this year, is larger than ever noted before? I’ll be slathering on the sunscreen!

Tia and I just estimated that the time we spent on planes coming down here was around 32 hours:

ORD – DEN - DEN – LAX – AUK – CHC – MCMURDO – CHC – MCMURDO

Time spent in airports would put that estimate over 48 hours! It feels great to unpack and stretch out for awhile—like the next five months!

Arriving on the Ice for the first time is exhilarating! Stepping carefully off a C-17 cargo plane in my enormous blue boots and onto 12 foot thick sea ice is an experience I never dreamed of having. Besides taking in the ice, I looked around to white and blue horizons on each side with mountain ranges and the white hills of McMurdo speckled with dirt. We squished into our shuttle vehicles that slowly crawled up to McMurdo.

Because we were on a boomerang flight the day before, and the weather conditions were so poor flying into Antarctica, we did not expect to land yesterday. In fact, we were all convinced we would make our attempts and boomerang back to New Zealand, again, so when we felt touchdown, we were shocked! None of us really knew what to do next, but we all methodically put on our ECW (Extra Cold Weather) Gear and made our way towards the door!

Today was my first day of work. We first took an outdoor tour of the town. It was informational, however, I realized there is more here than I expected. We had a couple more safety meetings today, too. They emphasize safety over and over again, which is good, given the volatile environment we are in, but it gets tedious after awhile! We are also required to drive each vehicle for a few minutes so we know the procedures for starting and stopping them.

So, we took out a van and I took my very first drive in Antarctica off-road on the sea ice. Granted, I only had to go 100 yards, or so, to the main ice road, but it felt pretty cool! I was driving on the Ross Sea to the Ice Town Airport. There are three airports we use here. The one I flew in on will be open until December and will then be moved to another location; reason being, it melts. Williams Field, the second runway, will be open for a couple of months, but is also on the temporary ice field. Pegasus is the third airstrip (and the furthest out). It is on the permanent ice shelf.

The second vehicle I drove was one of the airporters (it’s what you probably think of when you think of a hotel/airport shuttle bus). We drove those over to the Scott Base (run by the kiwis). From there we were able to have a closer look at the transition point where the sea ice pushes into Ross Island. We also saw Mt. Erebus steaming. This mountain is an active volcano.

Airport safety training finished off the workday, which included another drive out to the airport and on this occasion we saw a seal off in the distance!

As if seeing some wildlife wasn’t enough, I also got the first of three packages I sent to myself. I mailed it from Illinois on September 12 and it arrived on the same flight that I came down on, nearly a month later!

Pictured on this posting are (from top to bottom): The C-17 Cargo plane we took off in both days we made attempts, Stepping out of the door and entering the cold weather (it was a high of -8F), One of the first views of Antarctica from the plane, and my big blue boots (many people have white marshmallow ones, but I got these brand new blue ones)!