Flat Stanley helps pilot the C17 to McMurdo.
We arrived safely in McMurdo last night after a five hour flight from Christchurch, avoiding the dreaded and common ”boomerang” scenario where the plane is forced to turn around close to McMurdo on account of rapidly changing weather. The final “winfly” (winter fly-in) flight was supposed to occur today but was canceled due to an approaching storm. The storm never materialized however, and our first day in Antarctica was calm and warm (-15 C).
Our arrival was somewhat chaotic. The plane landed on an ice runway around 10 miles from McMurdo (there is an ice runway closer to the station, but it has developed a crack) and we spent some time taking in the change in scenery before climbing into “Deltas”, tractor/bus hybrids with extra-wide tires for the hour long crawl to the station. We arrived in time for dinner and a series of briefs by the station manager, station doctor, and others.
Loading the Deltas. Photo: Shelly.
With the last of our energy we took a tour of the Crary Lab building (named after the pioneering Antarctic researcher Albert Crary), where our laboratory and other works spaces are located. It’s exciting to be at McMurdo and to see the tools and space we need to do our work, but daunting to think about the challenges we will need to overcome in the coming weeks! Foremost among those challenges will be lobbying the science supervisors for access to open water. But before we can do that we need to complete a long list of trainings (on vehicles, vehicle maintenance, radios, survival, etc, etc…), find our equipment (most of which hasn’t arrived yet), and get our lab spaces organized and operational. We will hit the ground running on Monday morning!
McMurdo Station. The large blue building center right is the dining facility and station store. The Crary Lab building is almost out of site behind the large tan building in the left foreground. The Dellbridge Islands can be seen on the horizon to the right. Photo: Shelly.
