Friday and Saturday were the official New Year's holiday here in McMurdo. Friday there was brief power outage that knocked out power in the dorms for about 5 minutes (and knocked out our wifi for a few hours. It's a harsh continent). I went for a hike in the afternoon, and then after dinner Sean and I checked out Ice Stock. It wasn't as crowded or crazy as two years ago, which I think was probably because it wasn't on New Year's Eve.
Sunday I had a relatively weird brunch--Prime Rib and Corn Dogs (it's a harsh continent). I wandered down to the wharf by the ice pier and watched the first 5 innings or so of the first game of the Antarctic Softball Tournament before going on a hike. It was kind of cloudy but there wasn't much wind, which always makes for good hiking weather.
We'd been told that we were going to be on the next flight to the South Pole, but by the afternoon we hadn't heard anything. This was a little concerning because that flight was scheduled to Bag Drag at 8pm. I decided to assume that we were going to have to bag drag and did laundry and started packing just in case. As the afternoon went on, we still hadn't heard anything, but I caught up with Ryan our implementer at dinner. He made a few phone calls and it turned out that there had been a mixup, but we were indeed supposed to be on that flight and should Bag Drag at 8. We're going to be able to keep our rooms, so I only took the stuff that I thought I would need in the field, and kept the rest in my room.
I started bringing my stuff up to Building 140, site of the Bag Drag, a little before 8. I took two trips, because I would have actually had to drag my bags up the hill if I didn't. Once there, we went over the plan for tomorrow--we need to be ready to transport at 7:15am if the WAIS divide flight doesn't end up going. If it does, we need to report back at 8:15am to see if we've been activated for the second flight of the day. I'll try to post something in the morning if we know anything more.
It must be really interesting out there in Antartica, with that kind of uncharted yet fairly isolated terrain you have. It's probably a bit more easy to take note of your stuff in that kind of set-up, since you only have to account for pretty much yourself, but yes it's probably best to be prepared and get your stuff packed. All the best!
ReplyDeleteClay Delgado @ World Packaging Inc.