In New Zealand

I am now in New Zealand. This post is a little delayed as I've been busy with enjoying New Zealand and getting some other work done. I got into Christchurch late Tuesday night (early Tuesday morning US time) after a relatively long last day of the field season.

I am sure that my last day of the field season on previous trips have also been a whirlwind of activity. In fact, given that on one trip we had a Twin Otter flight the day before, and on another I arrived into McMurdo, from a field camp, a day after my originally scheduled flight, this year was probably more quiet than most. However, it was still a busy day of running around town and taking care of last minute details and saying good bye to the colleagues and friends from the field season. In truth, some of the craziness of my last day was self inflicted by me not getting a few things done a week or two earlier.

I woke up in the morning to a notification that the southbound C-17 flight from Christchurch was on a two-hour delay. With all of the mechanical, runway, and other issues with the C-17 flights, this was last C-17 flight until late January, and it was over a week later than was anticipated. The runway at Phoenix Airfield is a compressed snow runway for wheeled aircraft. During December and most of January, the runway is considered unusable by the C-17 because the snow is too soft for the wheeled landings of the C-17 with the sun highest in the sky during the peak of the summer. The two-hour delay allowed me to get a little more sleep, and a little more time to get things done.

The C-17 flight from Christchurch to McMurdo Station is roughly 5 hours. With a two-hour delay on departure, to 11:00 AM, that meant an arrival at approximately 4:00 PM. The passengers for the flight are typically transported to Phoenix Airfield prior to the flight arriving. This means that we had a 2:30 PM transport time from McMurdo, on the large Kress people mover, and it was over an hour drive on the Kress to Phoenix.

Since this was the last of the C-17 flights, it was loaded with cargo. The turn around time on the C-17 flight can generally be between an hour and a half to two hours. On Tuesday it was over three hours. It didn't help that with the soft snow at Phoenix, several of the transport and cargo vehicles were having difficulties getting stuck. It was a beautiful sunny day at Phoenix Airfield so much of the time was spent watching the activities on the snow apron and I spent a little time in the passenger terminal at Phoenix.

The northbound C-17 flight finally departed from Phoenix Airfield at 7:00 PM. The cargo plane had a moderate number of passengers, but no need for the additional seats in the cargo area. Additionally, there was a small amount of cargo on the northbound flight. The result is that it was a very spread out and comfortable flight. This was a big improvement from my past northbound flights that were on cramped shoulder-to-shoulder and knee-to-knee C-130 flights. The flight took 5-1/2 hours as there were some headwinds and a little turbulence as we neared New Zealand. We landed at 12:30 AM and then we had to go through customs and immigration, similar to other international flights into New Zealand.

After leaving the airport, it is a short walk to the USAP Clothing Distribution Center (CDC) where we drop off the extreme cold weather gear that we were issued prior to the field season. The CDC is also where we get our hotel reservations and ticketed flights back to the US. Because delays are so common with the flights from Antarctica, the flights are typically not booked until the northbound flight is airborne. Next, it was waiting to get a shuttle to the hotel. Add all of this up and I didn't check into the hotel until 2:30AM. I was very hungry and I was able to fortunately find a Turkish restaurant open until 3AM for a late dinner. I didn't make it to bed until 3:30 AM. To no surprise, this is part of the reason for the delay this post being written.
I have chosen to spend four nights in New Zealand on my way back to Colorado. I have always felt that two nights were more or less mandatory to give yourself a chance to adapt back to the normal world. I have also added two days of vacation. My flight back to the US starts Saturday afternoon, and if all goes well, I will be arriving back in Colorado Saturday afternoon (gaining a day with the dateline).

I still plan to write about the rebuild of McMurdo Station that will be done over the next ~8-10 years. However, I might wait a few more days until I share the details of that large project. Lastly, in a few weeks, I will also be sending out a link to the photo album from this year's trip. Other than that, this year's journey to Antarctica is over. Thanks for following along!                         

Thanksgiving at McMurdo Station

Hello from McMurdo Station at the end of our Thanksgiving weekend. The US Antarctic Program generally has 6-day work weeks with a one day weekend. Holidays are combined with Sunday to make 2-day weekends. For Thanksgiving, that means celebrating Thanksgiving on a Saturday and then having the normal Sunday as an off day. Having a two-day weekend is a big deal here and typically these weekends stick out in what becomes a very methodical lifestyle with 24-hours of daylight.

The traditional Thanksgiving day in McMurdo starts the same way it does in towns and cities across the US, with a turkey trot road race. Unfortunately, I've been feeling less than 100% lately and decided against running in the turkey trot. I was debating my decision leading right up to the race. In the end, I slept right through the start time and that made the decision for me. The weather was mixed for this year's turkey trot. It was not the beautiful warm (~20sF) and sunny conditions we've had in past years but it was also not the stormy conditions that were in the forecast for awhile leading up to our Thanksgiving.

The Galley (cafeteria) spends days prepping for the Thanksgiving dinner. There are five different serving times for the Thanksgiving Dinner. The times are 1:00 PM, 3:00 PM, 5:00 PM, 7:00 PM, and midnight. The first seating is for the dining staff and the last if for those that work the night shift. That means most of the current 939 people on station are spread out over the 3:00, 5:00, and 7:00 seatings. Reservations are required to ensure that a given time is not overwhelmed with too many people. My dinner was at the 7:00 PM seating and I think that has been the same time for me during the four (out of the last five years) Thanksgiving Dinners in McMurdo.

The amount of food that is prepared for the station is approximately:

• 1008 lbs turkey
• 400 lbs turkey breasts
• 360 lbs ham
• 35 gallons gravy
• 500 lbs potatoes
• 195 pies

One tricky part of the days is that with the Galley busy serving all of the different seating times, there is no availability of other food. Breakfast finishes at 10:00 AM and that is it for hot food for the day, other than the Thanksgiving dinners. That means if you are somebody, like me, eating at 7:00 PM you might get hungry along the way. The Galley provides a Grab-n-Go cooler where they provide cold food items for people to eat when they get hungry during the day. It was reported that they also made 100 pizzas to be placed in the cooler for Grab-n-Go food. 

My Thanksgiving dinner was with colleagues from the University of Wisconsin automatic weather station (AWS) project and a science group out of University of Colorado that is here to collect payloads from balloons that were launched during the winter. The Thanksgiving meal is a collection of all of the great food that you would expect with a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. Included was carved turkey, stuffing, potatoes, corn, green bean casserole, gravy, rolls, and three types of pies. I am also sure I have left out some of the other options, such as ham, that we were provided for the day. The Galley provides everybody one glass of wine and you are also able to bring in your own wine if interested in having more to drink. I was able to put together a plate of amazing Thanksgiving food and I was very happy with all that I was able to eat.

The Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend is typically a quiet recovery day with station operations slowly spinning back up to normal. Thanksgiving is one of the few days where most everything shuts down in town. By the end of Sunday the nighttime operations have resumed and the two-day weekend has quickly disappeared.

We are in the final couple days, at least by schedule, for our 2019 field season in Antarctica. Our field work was finished last Thursday with the assistance of the Kiwi grad class. We spent part of Friday finalizing much our our cargo to be shipped north. That cargo will be submitted into the cargo system tomorrow, Monday, to begin its journey back to Colorado. We will be shipping seven crates and four pallets of instruments and equipment. USAP will ship everything to Port Hueneme, California, by a vessel ship, and then I will arrange for the freight to cover the last leg to Colorado with the cargo likely arriving in late April.

Given that there is a chance this could be my last trip to Antarctica, I am also trying to capture and experience things that I enjoy the most about life in Antarctica. However, these efforts are also in conflict with the work needed to finish up the season, as well as some work that needs to be done with some projects back in Colorado. I am hoping to walk around McMurdo and take photos of the station as it is currently constructed as it will be very different if/when I return next as McMurdo is going to be rebuilt in the coming years. I hope to cover more of the McMurdo rebuild in my next post.