A Week in McMurdo

Life in McMurdo, or anywhere in Antarctica for that matter, can make the days all blur together and suddenly a week goes by where you are not sure how it was spent. Each day runs into the next and oftentimes one day does not distinguish itself from others. With the six day work week in town there is little time for the weekends to be unique. Part of the reason for days blending together is that there is a fairly small area where you live and what you see every day becomes very repetitive. I look back at the last two weeks and it feels like they have flown by and it is difficult to believe that I am down to one week until I leave McMurdo. This past Saturday I tried to think through my week and I was confused on what we did on several days. John and I had to pool our memories to determine which days we flew the UAVs, which days we went out to Pegasus and did not fly, and which days we never left town. I thought people might enjoy the results as a snapshot into the day to day life of a little over a week in McMurdo.

Saturday - September 17:  
We returned to flying the UAVs after the accident that cut John's hand. We went out to Pegasus in the morning after breakfast and promptly crashed the UAV (SUMO2) twice, rendering it no longer able to fly after the second attempt. We went back to McMurdo to get the backup plane and returned to Pegasus by mid-afternoon. We got in a couple flights, the winds turned light and variable, and we returned back to McMurdo by mid evening feeling happy with the two completed flights. (The UAV is difficult to launch with no wind to help provide lift at takeoff.) I was also happy to make it back to town to go to a "birthday blowout" party hosted by the plumbing shop.

Sunday - September 18:
We had thoughts of flying for the day but were hesitant because the forecast was for light winds. We agreed to meet at noon and evaluate our options. Sundays are the one day off during the week in town so the meals are condensed to a brunch and dinner. I had brunch, John and I met in the lab, and we were uncertain of the winds so we decided to wait and see how they would respond. We ended up staying in town the whole day. I remember going to the gym and getting in a treadmill run that afternoon.

Monday - September 19:
For this day we decided to do some flights ranging from early evening to the early morning hours. I spent the beginning of the day getting some research done for a project back in Colorado. We had an early dinner (right after the Galley opened at 5:00PM) and then drove out to Pegasus. We were able get in two flights and then the winds went to light and variable. We waited a couple hours and then ended the night early realizing we were not going to get in anymore flights.

Tuesday - September 20:
The plan for the day was to switch to more of a daytime schedule. We left McMurdo around mid-morning to do flights from mid-morning until around dinner. The first UAV flight crashed because of a bad throw and the winds were too light. We had to go back to McMurdo, without a successful flight, in order to repair the UAV. We made it back in time for lunch and spent the remainder of the day doing other work and I got in another treadmill run at the gym.

Wednesday - September 21:
We weren't sure of our plans for the day but the forecast was calling for it to be windy at Pegasus. The forecast verified and there was Condition 2 weather at Pegasus, which meant it was too windy and too low of visibility at Pegasus to do any UAV flying. We spent the day in McMurdo getting other work done. I was able to get in my longest treadmill run of the season late that evening.

Thursday - September 22:
John had a Skype session in the morning with his daughter's elementary class. With that commitment we planned to do early afternoon to evening flights at Pegasus. We started to leave at 1:30 but did not get very far. We brought in our van to the vehicle maintenance facility to have the fluids topped off. They took care of the fluids and then decommissioned the van because it was leaking too much power steering fluid. It was not until 3:30 that we got a replacement van and were able to leave for Pegasus. The van problem was not much of a delay because we got to Pegasus and the winds were too light to fly. We waited at Pegasus for about four hours and determined the wind was not going to be increasing anytime soon. We decided to end the day and returned to McMurdo without any flights.

Friday - September 23:
Friday had a significant storm that was very well forecast. The storm verified with Condition 2 in McMurdo and Condition 1 at Pegasus Airfield. The weather stayed about the same the entire day. After a run of a few days of pushing the pace and getting nowhere, I decided to slow down and take it easy the first half of the day. I was able to do my laundry that morning. That evening I made it to Gallagher's (the one bar open during the winter) where it was Open Mic night. I was able to see some fantastic performances by some of the workers in McMurdo.

Saturday - September 24:
We decided to stick with the plan for flights from early afternoon through the evening hours. That allowed me to do another treadmill run in the morning. We left for Pegasus at noon and were treated with some near ideal winds to fly the UAV. We completed two flights back-to-back (we generally do flights every two hours). The winds were too light to fly when we wanted to do the third flight. We tried again an hour later with no change. We waited another hour and found the winds acceptable and completed a third flight. After the third flight, we concluded that the winds were likely going to be light for the rest of the night, we were happy to get in three good flights, and we decided it was best to return to McMurdo. We were back in McMurdo by mid-evening.

Sunday - September 25:
The forecast was for light winds throughout the day. We also had the weekly general science lecture in the evening. It was a rare day where we left the lab the night before with no plans to fly for the day. We also had daylight savings go into effect overnight. (While there is no need for daylight savings in Antarctica, McMurdo Station, South Pole, and most of the US Antarctic Program follows the time of Christchurch, New Zealand which switched to daylight savings.) I went to the non-denominational church service at the Chapel of the Snows and then the weekly brunch. Most of the afternoon was fairly quiet until late afternoon when I took some time to prepare for my portion of the science lecture. The evening was dinner and the science lecture, which went well.

By the end of the week I was able to remember that we had a couple days with a couple flights, a couple days with no flights due to no wind, and a couple days with no flights due to a storm. The difficult part was putting the days in order because it all seemed to blend together.