The Arrival

Today I think I experienced a fraction of what Neil Armstrong felt when he opened the door to the lunar lander and first set on eyes on a “new” world.

Our flight was scheduled to leave Christchurch airport at about 5:00 am NZ time. That meant the shuttle picked us up from our hotel at 2:00 am, and I unfortunately went to bed at about 10:00 pm. Our shuttle took us to the clothing center where we had to equip ourselves with our cold weather gear before we were allowed to enter the terminal. The US military was our chauffer and a C-17 was our ride, so we arrived in style in just under five hours.

 

As I walked out of the aircraft today, the view didn’t seem Earthly. I felt as if I had just been transplanted to another planet—it was all very surreal. The simplicity of the flat, barren, and white landscape was somewhat unnerving. With its unpredictable weather, you can only come to Antarctica if she lets you. Lucky for us our call was answered. It’s very common for flights to get turned back halfway through because of weather, making a five hour flight to Antarctica a seven hour flight only to end up where you begin. The record number of turnarounds for a single group is seven (that would be like flying back and forth between Europe for a week).

After we unboarded the plane we were herded into a terra bus, which is a specialized bus with tank like tracks instead of wheel. It was about an hour’s ride to McMurdo station—the American base at which we are stationed. I will have to make this trip twice a day once we get going. While we are stationed at McMurdo, most of our work will be carried out at the airfield. Once we arrived we had several briefings, given room assignments, and checked out our linens. While I don’t consider myself to be very high maintenance, I’m still trying to get use to wearing long under wear and sleeping in sheets that other people have used.

Tomorrow we will officially begin our training. Plus it sounds like we’ve been given special permission to go to the airfield and unpack the plane (technically you are not supposed to leave the base until you complete all training). I’ll looking forward to Friday which will include Happy Camper training. For this exercise they take you a little ways outside base, and you have to build a snow fort and sleep in it for the night. Time to try to get some shut eye, even though it is bright as day outside.