A Surprise Homecoming

December 22nd 2017 was quite literally one of the longest days of my life--let me explain. Due to our good luck with weather, we flew our final flight on 17 December (which was dictated by the number of flight hours budgeted by this project). Our final flight did not disappoint as we flew over a series of glaciers in the Transantarctic mountains. This was also the most harrowing of flights as we were getting slammed by some turbulence trying to go up one of said glaciers. Now that I'm back in the land of internet, I can include some videos. Below is a video from the flight:

I had know for a week prior to our final flight that I was likely going to make it home much earlier than originally planned; however, the details of a return trip were up in the air and seemed to change every day. For a bit, I thought I was going to be able to fly home on the Basler rather than taking an NSF LC-130 back to Christchurch. I was actually looking forward to this option as it would have meant flying across the continent and up through South America (one of two continents I have yet to visit). However, this plan required two of our people getting a ride on an LC as the Basler didn't have enough room for all of us.

We thought we had secured those requisite spots; however, the morning of our last flight we were told we didn't have those spots. Sometime between us getting on the plane and us landing 5.5 hours later we went from none of us on the plane to all five of us. I was both happy and a little disappointed. Disappointed because it meant no flight across the continent and no South America, but happy because I was going home. There's an old Antarctic say that goes, "If there is a plane going north, get on it." It's a more contemporary saying. As I write this, the Basler is still in Antarctica, but making progress getting home.

On 21 December, I loaded onto an LC-130 for my 8 hour ride back to New Zealand. On December 22nd, I woke up at 7am, and boarded a plane for Auckland. After 39 hours of travelling, I finally arrived on my doorstep at 8pm on DECEMBER 22ND! I had decided to keep my early return a secret from Cooper. When he greeted me at the door he just just stared at me and told I wasn't supposed to be home yet. The reason for his reaction? He was in the middle of remodelling our kitchen, and had planned to surprise me with it. The lesson here is never try to surprise a professional surpriser because you will always get out surprised.

It's good to be home for the holidays, and I plan to relax until after the New Year. Here's a video of me, and what I've been up to since I returned (the breathing you can hear is "me"):

Dear Weather Gods, We are at Your Mercy

After great luck with weather in our first week of missions, this last week the weather gods reminded us that they are in charge. We had about five down days in a row due to weather. In a place like Antarctica, where your purpose for being there is very specific, down days are pretty tough. We did take advantage of them check a few other "tourist" things off the list. 

Since McMurdo is located on an island, we are surrounded by a floating ice shelf. This year an "Observation Tube" (aka the Ob Tube) was installed in the sea ice. This tube has a diameter barely sufficient for a large adult, but if one can manage their claustrophobia enough to get down to the bottom, you are treated to a magnificent sight. The Ob tube extends about seven feet below the sea ice into the ocean below, and allows you to observe the aquatic life below. The first time I did it, the feeling was reminiscent to the end of the movie "Life Aquatic" when Steve Zissou sees the Jaguar Shark. I went a total of five times, and typically you can hear seal calls which have a very techno/automated sound to them. Once I actually saw a seal swimming around towards the sea floor. Photos below are from my teammate Chris Larsen.

The unsuspecting Ob Tube from above the surface.

Below the surface is a magical world. Chris captured this jellyfish swimming around while he was down there.

Looking up toward the sea ice from below. All the little dots you see are tiny fish. They are in abundance down there.

 There's also several tours one can take in the surrounding area. One such tour is the pressure ridges that form on the other side of the hill near Scott Base. These ridges are essentially the buckling of the nearby ice due to the more seaward ice flowing towards it. These ridges also form cracks in the ice that seals come up through. Also nearby is Robert Falcon's original hut from when he attempted the South Pole in 1901-1902. The hut is filled with a lot of artifacts not only from his expeditions, but also the subsequent expeditions that also used the hut as a launching point for the pole.

Can you feel the pressure? One of the ice formations at the pressure ridge.

Seal stretch. These seemingly lazy beasts remind me a lot of Bowie on a warm sunny afternoon. As our tour guide informed us, seals actually live very tough lives under the sea, and then often come up on the icy all bloody from either fighting or just trying to get out of the ice so their rest is well-deserved.

Inside Scott's hut. Some of their original cooking supplies. Not pictured, but present: dirty, 100-year-old long johns.

Hard to read, but this is 100-year-old graffiti by H.E. Wild. A member of Shackleton's expedition.

Luckily the good weather has returned, and we are back to flying. On Thursday we ended up doing a flight that required us to refuel at Shackleton field camp. Shackleton camp is a remote camp located in the Transantarctic Mountains (emphasis on remote) Before I left for Antarctica, I found out that a friend of a friend would be working at Shackleton. Our times at McMurdo were never going to overlap, so I didn't think I get the chance to meet him. It's amazing how Antarctica can simultaneously feel like a gigantic, desolate, and lonely continent, but also at the same time feel like a small town. Anyone you can share a connection with, feels like family out here. Below are some pics of Shackleton.

Shackleton Camp. Yes, this is pretty much it. Fuel pits in the foreground. Tent city in the background.

                                                       Aircraft parked at Shackleton for refueling.


I'm actually at our RAC tent right now and our aircraft just returned from another flight. Keep your fingers crossed and make your sacrifices to the weather gods so we can keep this good weather.

All Signs Point North

As kids we all have these crazy ideas of what we want to be when we grow up. When I was a little girl I wanted to be some combination of an aerospace engineer and Indiana Jones. This week I’ve flown on a refurbished DC-3 through the Trans Antarctic Mountains on one day and to the South Pole the next. It’s an amazing feeling to realize you’ve achieved your childhood dream job (or at least as close to it as it exists in the real world).

What a week. We’ve started our science flights on Wednesday, and I have eased into a daily routine of waking up at 5 am so I can get ready, eat breakfast, take a 6 mile 40 minute shuttle ride to the airfield, prepare the radar (and myself) for an 8:30 am takeoff. Most flights are planned to be about 5.5 hours, but our aircrew is pretty savvy about route planning, so we usually tack on a few additional flight lines which extend our flights by an hour or so. By the time we get back to McMurdo, it’s about time for dinner. There’s usually something going on each evening (often including more work), and with the constant daylight I find myself going to bed way later than I should.

As I mentioned, we started our science flights on Wednesday, but Thursday and Friday were by far the most exciting days this week. Thursday’s flights included flying through the Transantarctic Mountains. We were quite literally flying less than 1000’ above mountain tops, and were often flying through valleys where the sides of cliffs were only a few thousand feet from our wingtip (though they looked like they were only a few feet!). They don’t do the sights justice, below are a few pics of my view from the plane on Wednesday. The other day I had someone ask me why I would want to come back to Antarctica. I can’t remember what I said at the time, but after Wednesday I recognized that my answer is that the world is filled with power and beauty, and it should be observed and experienced.

While Wednesday’s flights were scenic, the ante was upped on Thursday. Originally our team was supposed to spend a week at the South Pole station to complete our two required flights; however, it wasn’t until I got down here that I was told only the bare minimum of people were going to go down, and I wasn’t part of that bare minimum team. My hopes of seeing the pole were dashed.

The pilots started expressing concerns about leaving the plane down at the pole for a week, and suggested instead to do two day trips down there, refueling at the pole and flying back. It meant being on the plane for 16 hours, but it also meant potentially more people could go down since we wouldn’t be staying at the station. I got excited again, but the day before our flight down there, I was told the captain only wanted to bring a minimum number of people. Since this meant only our radar team lead would be flying, my hopes were once again extinguished.

Early in this deployment, I offered to learn how to operate our precision navigation software. I had gotten it mostly set up before the pole flight, and ten minutes before the plane was supposed to takeoff I realized I hadn’t actually programmed the day’s flight paths since I wasn’t flying. I went and told our science lead, and he responded with, “Well we should have a dedicated person operating that during flight, let me go talk to the pilots and see if they are ok adding you so you can operate the PercisionNav.” He came back with a thumbs up from the pilots. With the flight scheduled to takeoff in a few minutes, I sprinted the quarter mile to the bathroom since there isn’t one the plane—only pee bottles which is exactly what they sound like (luckily there was a truck waiting for someone else when I got out of the bathroom, so they gave me a ride back). When I got back, I quickly scrambled to grab my ECW gear and some extra food for the long day ahead.

It was about 6.5 hours to get to the pole since we were flying science routes to get there, but I made it! It was -25^oF when we landed, though it wasn’t as cold as I had expected (I could, however, feel my nose hairs freezing after about 20 minutes of being outside). Below are the pics from the pole.

It been a long week, and I’ve flown almost 30 hours in about 4 days. Today (Sunday) is our one day off, and we are planning on doing some hiking and exploring today. We’ve been pretty lucky with weather so far, and I hope it can continue next week so we can complete more flights.