Dear
Apollo,Dear
Apollo,
Christchurch, New Zealand is where everyone who is going to Antarctica via McMurdo station leaves from. The United States Antarctic program has offices there. It is where we get our Extreme Cold Weather (or ECW) gear. If you look at photos of people working in Antarctica, you will notice that most of them are wearing red parkas. Well, I have one of those red parkas, and boy, are they warm! We get our clothing at the Clothing Distribution Center (or CDC). You can't go to a place this cold without having the proper clothing. First, everyone who is called to try on their clothes gathers in the main room of the CDC. A man named Mike explained the procedures, such as what clothing we would be issued for our specific jobs and what to do with our bags when we were finished trying on the clothes.
Next, we went in the changing rooms and found 2 bright orange bags with our names written on tags attached to the bags. Then, we had to try everything on. (Before we left, we sent them a sheet with our clothing sizes on it so they'd know what clothes to pull for us). You want to make sure everything fits because you don't want to get down to "the ice" and find out your wind overalls and parka don't fit! You'd freeze! I have everything from gloves and hats to long-johns and socks. And don't forget the parka! Oh, another important part of your Antarctic outfit is the bunny boots which are white, thermal, rubber boots that are extremely warm. I guess they are called bunny boots because your feet look like a bunny's, big and white, in the snow. Let me tell you, you can't move "quick as a bunny" in them; they are cumbersome and heavy. They feel more like elephant boots, especially if you go on a hike in them!
After you finish trying on your clothes, you leave your orange bags packed up at the CDC ready to go when they schedule you on the plane. Then you get to spend time touring around Christchurch. Usually, you are "manifested" on a plane scheduled to leave in a day or two. Now that I had my clothing, I was getting more excited and ready to go! The planes are usually scheduled to leave at about 8:00 in the morning. This means you have to get to the CDC at about 4:15 in the morning! Think how early that means you have to get up! But the one catch is the weather. If the weather is bad in either Christchurch or the Ross Island area (where McMurdo is), the planes can't fly. That's one thing you can't control--the weather!
Our first "fly" day, our group got up at 3:30 or so only to receive a call saying our plane was delayed for 3 hours. Yay! More sleep! In 3 hours, I got a knock on my hotel door and someone telling me we were cancelled until the next day. Well, one more day to hang out in town. I was ready to go though! Maybe tomorrow!
Tomorrow came and we got up only to be told we were
delayed until 8am. This time we took the shuttle back out to the
CDC (which is near the airport, of course!), got into our ECW gear
(you can't fly on the plane without it), and stood in line to check
our orange bags and other luggage only to be told this flight was
again cancelled until the next day. Oh, I was really impatient to
go. But what can you do? The next day, we followed the same routine
only this time we got to check our bags, watch a safety video in
the lounge, catch the bus to the C-17 and board it.
The pictures of me in my ECW gear were taken in the lounge.
That's me with a new friend, Lorie. She runs the store down
here.
C-17's are military "luxury" planes, I
guess. People who had flown on the C-141's and C-130's before were
excited about how much room there was to walk around on this plane.
You can see how big it is from the photo taken from the flight
deck. The flight deck is where the pilots sit and fly the plane. It
was so exciting to feel the engines roar as we sped down the runway
and up into the sky. Antarctica, here we come! Almost...
This time we flew for about 2 hours only to have to turn around due to a low cloud ceiling at the ice runway in McMurdo. The C-17 needs what's called a 3,000 foot cloud ceiling in order to land. The clouds got lower and lower as we got closer and closer, so we had to turn around. This is called a "Boomerang." Can you figure out where the term came from? Have you ever seen someone throw a boomerang? It is supposed to come back to you after you throw it. Well, our plane turned around and landed back where we started. Oh, was I disappointed! I really wanted to get there.
By now, you know the routine we followed only this time, we made it! I could look out the small port-hole like window at the front of the plane and see the continent--glaciers, mountains, ice.
Soon the pilots had us strap our seatbelts back on and get ready for landing. It seemed like the longest landing in the world because I was so excited. Most military planes don't have regular windows like commercial airplanes, so during the landing we couldn't see anything until the doors were opened and we were outside. This is us getting ready to leave the plane. I'm the one in the bright yellow hat!
It was a bright, beautiful, sunny day. And cold! The colors you see are mostly blue and white. Sky and snow. You can see the plane on the ice runway.
Yes, it's called an ice runway because at this time of year all the planes land on the seasonal sea ice which is only about 6 meters (2 meter sticks!) thick. Can you believe we landed on ice? That enormous airplane!? Underneath the ice is the Ross Sea. It's called seasonal ice because it breaks up every year and either melts or floats out to sea. Pretty amazing to think about.
I felt like a tourist looking excitedly at the scenery. I had seen my friend Patrick's photos from last year and now here I was seeing it for myself! (My students last year got to meet Patrick whom they e-mailed while he was here. Perhaps they remember him.)
Once off the bus, people greeted old friends and I looked for Patrick. That's me waving hello to him and to all of you!
Chapter 3: Mactown - Our Community