I am so excited for you James! This suits you so well. I am looking forward to reading your future posts...living there through you! Don't forget to post pictures.
I finally made it to the South Pole! McMurdo can be a fun place, but I was very ready to get down to pole. The travel through McMurdo can be kind of tricky. There are many things that can delay you once you get there. Weather is one of the biggest factors you have to deal with, and it is not just the weather at McMurdo or Pole, but at many other places in Antarctica as well. McMurdo supports many field camps in Antarctica, and many of those camps have worse weather than the South Pole. So there are times that a South Pole flight will be delayed if they find out the weather in one of the camps is good enough to get people in or out. Right now, it is so early in the season we didn't have much of a problem with that. In fact, I was actually on the first LC-130 to get to Pole this season! There were a couple of Baslers (a DC-3 with skis) that went in before us, but I think our flight marks the opening of the station for summer. That being said, our delays were due to weather at Pole and maintenance issues. Thankfully, it was all cleared up today and we finally made it in!
As I have stated before, this is my second trip, and while I was really looking forward to getting here, it felt like I was losing some of the excitement I had when I first decided to try to come back. Mostly, I think I just got stuck in a routine at McMurdo, so I was starting to feel like it wasn't really going to be that big a deal any more, almost like it the "new" was starting to wear off. The reality, however, has been very different. When we arrived it was almost like coming home. I had a little time this afternoon to run around and re-explore the station all over again, and it reignited some of that sense of adventure and excitement that I felt when I first started the process to spend the year here. Really, I almost felt as excited as I did the first time I came down here.
Right now, I still feel like this isn't "our" station yet. That is, the station is still being run by many of last year's winterovers. But I feel that as they are starting to head back north and those of us who are taking over for the next year step into our positions, the station will become OUR home until the next crew comes in a year from now. This is an exciting time of transition, and I am so happy to be a part of it. I am really looking forward to what the year ahead holds!
As time goes on, I hope to be able to give more detail about the station and the people and science here. If anyone has any questions about life down here, please feel free to leave a comment, and I will try to either respond directly to the comment, or I may even try to write blog post in response.
"South Pole At Last!"
2 Comments -
I am so excited for you James! This suits you so well. I am looking forward to reading your future posts...living there through you! Don't forget to post pictures.
11/04/2016 7:05 AM
So glamorous. ;-)
11/05/2016 8:13 AM