Setting a Pace

I am now 3+ days into this year's Antarctic field season. Overall, I feel that things are going pretty good. It is hard to say for certain because we have only covered the unpacking and beginning phases of getting the instrumentation and hardware ready for installation. Generally, I feel my preferred approach has been to arrive in McMurdo, hit the ground running, and try to push the pace hard for the first few days. The motivation behind this is to get through the initial setup phase and to establish a routine and familiarity as quickly as possible. Another big reason is to finish the wave after wave of trainings, briefings, and meetings as quickly as possible. The following is the list of things orientation-type activities that we've had to do: arrival briefing, science in-briefing, lab safety training, pickup radios and satellite phone, meet with the riggers, briefing on using the radios for comms, light vehicle training, Mactrack truck training, meet with IT, pickup gear for working in the field, environmental training, field safety training w/helo training, and outdoor safety lecture. At some point we also need to meet with the supervisor for the fixed-wing airplane flights and the supervisor for the helo flights. The whiteboard in the lab has been very handy in keeping track of all of that. I now feel that after this initial surge of activity that the next phase is to transition more to a pace that can be maintained throughout the field season. The trick is to be able to push the pace when needed to get things done in the field and to not get lost in time. If you are not careful, several days can quickly go by without any feeling of what you have done.

I have switched dorm rooms since I first arrived in McMurdo. My dorm  room was adjacent to the stairwell. With the heavy boots that people wear, and the thin walls , the constant up and down traffic on the stairs, especially before breakfast and the start of the work day, made me concerned about being able to get some good sleep. I went brought this up with lodging and they were very accommodating in letting me switch rooms. I am in the same general dorm but now with more of an interior room. I currently do not have a roommate but that could change on any day with an inbound flight.

In my earlier post I commented that we had found much of the cargo and were waiting on two additional crates. I can happily report that all of our cargo had made it to McMurdo Station from Colorado. Thus far, everything case and crate that we've opened we have also discovered the equipment and hardware to be in good condition. In the past, there have been horror stories from other research groups about the condition of their cargo after traveling halfway-across the globe. We shipped over 7,000 pounds of instruments, tools, hardware, and equipment for the installation of the Antarctic Precipitation Sites. All of that cargo was spread across nine crates and four pallets. 10 military-grade plastic cases with foam lining were stacked on the four pallets and contained some of the most valuable instruments.

The cases used to transport most of the instruments from Colorado to Antarctica.

All of the crates and cases in the outdoor photo are for this project, except the crate in the distance with the edges painted black. There was approximately 7,000 pounds of cargo shipped for the project.