I finaly made it to McMurdo this past week. Bad weather hammered Antarctica for an entire week. We had tried to fly down the day before, and we made it all the way down here but bad weather moved in and forced the flight to head all the way back to Christchurch. The loadmaster got on the intercom and said (with a grin) 'hey, you guys feel the airplane making a turn? Yeah, that us turning back to New Zealand, get compfy.' So 9 hours later we were in the same spot.
The week in Christchurch was great though. For a few day we knew the flight schedule was several days backed up and a bunch of us took a car out for a couple days. One day down to Akaroa, the next up to Arthurs Pass. But after a week of spending $70 Kiwi everyday, most of us were sick of Christchurch and Ready to head south.
I've been at work over a week now. With budget cuts all around everyone is behind. We are still trying to get everything fired up and ready for the start of the summer season. Last year things were already in full swing at this point. The new job is going well. I've been working outside everyday, which I normaly like, but its been averaging -10 outside with windchills down to -50. So at the end of the day I'm usualy pretty wiped out. Im staying busy though. Lately I've been trying to make a few extra bucks teaching ground school. So, over all everything is going well.
One of the nice things about my new job this season is we get to go places. Last week I went on a helo ride out the the Dry Valleys. About 75 miles west of McMurdo.
We were finding and digging out an emergency fuel cache. The barrels had been untouched for at least a couple years so we were tasked with digging them out and testing them to see if the fuel was still good, or in the drums at all. About 12 drums had been used up and 15 were still there.
A quick stop at Marble point to wait for weather to change. In a couple of weeks I'm heading back here to work for about 2 weeks.
The fuel cache
