I made it...

I arrived at McMurdo on October 9th...on the “worst day in US Antarctic history”, as the Senior US Representative in Antarctica put it. 

I started the morning at 3:45AM to get ready for a 4:30 pick-up and a 5AM check-in at the airport. As I walked out the door of my hotel room, I found a note that said the pick-up and check-in had been pushed back by 2 hours. So I hung out for another two hours in my room.

I got a lot of these while I was in Christchurch

I got checked in, which means my passport got checked, my bags got weighted, I got weighted, and I got my boarding pass. Then we did our pre-flight orientation (i.e. we watched a video about the program, the Antarctic treaty, and McMurdo). After that we had a 45 minute pause. I figured it was a weather delay, which had been a pretty regular occurrence (our group had already been delayed in CHC two days waiting for the weather to get better). As I found out later, it was actually because the ASC had received a partial stop order from the government, and they were trying to figure out if they should fly us down or not. They did eventually decide to fly, so we turned in our boarding passes, went through security, got on the bus and then onto the plane. 

The last time I was down, I took military planes to and from the ice. This time, since it is so early in the season, most of the US planes aren’t down in NZ yet, so we took an Australian Airbus for our 5 hour flight down to MCM. The flight went smoothly, we got our cold weather gear on and deplaned. Then we got on our ride to McMurdo, a huge snow-bus. Once at MCM, we were herded into the Chalet for the usual orientation briefing, which is were we found out that the stop order had been issued and a lot of people were going to be sent home. They still don’t know who exactly is going and who is staying. We should find out in the next couple of days.

After orientation, I met up with the current Research Associate, Liz, who I (hopefully) will be taking over for after training finishes up. We had actually already met briefly at the CDC in Christchurch. I also briefly met my boss, Cara, but she had to run to a teleconference about planning for the stop order. Liz gave me a short tour of Crary, the main science labs at MCM, and of the major landmarks in town. Then I headed to my room (Dorm 209, the pi room). I’ve got a room-mate for the next 18 days. Wendy works in the water plant, and this is the end of her 25th season on the ice. She’s planning on three more, and then retiring to Arizona. 

Dinner was a much more subdued affair than my previous experiences with McMurdo. Usually there is lots of noise and laughter as folks meet up with friends they haven’t seen since the last time they were down, get to know the new people they’ll be working with this season. Everyone is worried about their jobs, the program, and what comes next. 

Deplaning from the airbus