Going South

Robert Falcon Scott - 1st South Pole explorer








Wow... finally after 8 - 9 days the weather is finally warm enough to fly. So I have bag drag tonight at 7 and leave in the morning. Bad drag is literally just that - it's where we take our bags from where we're staying now and taking it down to the terminal to check in and we dress in all our gear and carry-on and get weighed in. There will be 40 of us on the C130. We're finally going. I'm sooo excited, yet a bit nervous. It's still about -78F and a little windy there. I got the temperature conversions... The good thing though is that once we arrive, we have the rest of the day off to climatize to the altitude which is about 9000 feet but with pressue can be up to 12,000 feet. So it just depends on the air pressure. Anyway, I'll kind of lucky to have almost a full day of recovery since I don't work until nightshift. Although I hope I can stay awake the first few nights of work!

I think I'll always rememeber those words - going South. That reminds me of the the words 'going North' which was referred to going North from Kuwait to Iraq in Gulf 2. Anyway, I think this will be more fun than playing Army in the desert. Although very cold!

There were 3 planes that landed at the Pole today. Amazingly enough, today is the 50th anniversary of Robert F. Scott's trip to the Pole. He's the statue in the picture which was taken at the botanical garden in Christchurch, New Zealand.

First blog!

Me on a hike out to Ross sea shelf - it's all frozen over. View of McMurdo

Me near Scott Hut around McMurdo where my camera froze...

I'm creating this blog so friends and family can follow my travels to Antarctica. I have just heard about blogger and am new to it. We'll see how technical blogging really gets as my trip progresses.

I am currently in Antarctica stationed at McMurdo. It's been a whirlwind travel first leaving Washington state and flying to Denver for orientation. After 1 1/2 days there, we all flew to Auckland, New Zealand with a layover in Los Angeles. Then we flew to Christchurch where we were issued our cold weather gear. After a few days there, we flew to McMurdo in Antarctica.

Looking at the calendar I've been here at McMurdo for 6 days although it definately feels longer. My final destination is the South Pole to which I'm waiting for the weather to warm up so the military planes (C130's) can fly us down and replace the Polies currently there. We're expecting to fly out this Tuesday.

My job title is production cook although I'll be working more as the lead baker's assistant - so I'll be making bread, desserts and pastries. An interesting fact about me is that I am not a fan of the cold or snow. I usuaslly pick seasonal jobs in warm/ hot weather and preferably with a beach or lake nearby. Armed with this information about me, all my friends think I'm totally crazy for wanting to see the South Pole. "It's really cold there and you'll be miserable," they all said trying to sway me into going someplace else. But stubborn as I am, I stuck to my guns and thought it would be a trip of a lifetime... and here I am. In the meantime, I just have to think happy warm thoughts for 60F to me, is cold.

It's currently -12C and I'm not sure of the conversion to Farenheit. The Pole is -58C today. I believe it's something like 21 hrs ahead of West Coast USA time. I just tell everyone on the westcoast that I'm 3 hrs behind but the next day. Kind of confusing but it makes sense to me.

Sightseeing around here is different. Everything is white with snow and cold. The first time I went for a hike for pictures, my camera froze. But the view is quite nice. It's 24 hrs of daylight so it still throws me off.