C17 pictures

Here are some more pictures from yesterday. This one is getting off the plane at the end of our journey from Christchurch to Christchurch. Dennis put on his hat and sunglasses for the occasion.









Part of the biomechanics group after arriving in Christchurch. From L to R, Dennis is in my lab and has a blog with lots of pictures, Mark and Jim are profs for the class, and that's me in my huge parka. The guy in the background is a reporter for a TV station in Alabama... there's a group of reporters going down for a week - or I guess less than a week now. One of the other reporters is writing a blog for the Washington Post.



This is the arrival gate. They put us on buses to take us to the C17 and then bus us back to the CDC (clothing distribution center).

There's a cool picture of anchor ice in McMurdo Sound on wikipedia. We've been reading papers on anchor ice today, although I went for a short hike just outside of Christchurch (but missed my canine hiking partner!).

Hopefully we'll make it to McMurdo tomorrow!

another 24 hour delay

We got a phone call at 4:30am saying we had a 3 hour delay so I reset my alarm for 8:20, which is amazingly civilized. Then another call at 7:30 saying now it's a 24 hour delay... weather still bad at McMurdo. I guess it's better than spending another whole day on the plane, but I really hope we get there tomorrow. The biomechanics group is going to get together this morning and talk about anchor ice. It's hard to plan too much because we don't know exactly what we'll be able to do once we get there, but we're all (or at least I am!) feeling eager to start doing some science.

boomerang

Flew all the way to Antarctica then turned around because the weather was too bad to land. We had been warned that this could happen and it was a little disappointing, but part of the whole experience and it was a great day anyway. How often do you have an awesome day spending 9.5 hours on an airplane? We met Sir David Attenborough in the waiting room and talked to him briefly while trying not to be too annoying. He's working on a documentary on the poles and has been to the arctic.

The plane was really cool and amazingly comfortable. They let us go up in the cockpit and look at the sea ice. It was really loud so we all wore earplugs.

Once we got close to the continent, everyone was lining up at the windows to look out. The scenery was pretty spectacular.

I'm off to bed... we don't have to be there until 6:45 tomorrow so get to sleep past 5, which will be nice.

botanical garden

Since we're stuck in Christchurch, I borrowed a bike from the hotel and rode into town and went to the botanical garden. This was slightly more adventurous than you might think as it involved riding on the left side of the road - I walked my bike across a few crosswalks and managed to avoid causing any accidents. Very strange to have cars going by on your right side though.

Word is that Sir David Attenborough and his BBC film crew will be at McMurdo for about 3 weeks and he will be giving a Sunday night lecture that we get to go to. Apparently the weather at McMurdo this afternoon was really bad which is why our flight was canceled. When it's windy, the snow blows up and it's really difficult to see the ground. Since they're landing a gigantic plane on an ice runway, I fully support any precautions they want to take, like making sure they can see the ground. Weather forecast looks good for tomorrow though.

still in Christchurch

We got up at 4:15am to head to the CDC (Clothing distribution center) but got a call saying our flight is delayed 24 hours... not sure if it's weather or mechanical. Hopefully we'll get out tomorrow though. We're going to be flying on a C17, which is a big plane that only takes 5 hours rather than 7-8 to get there and apparently is more comfortable than the C130. The good news is that our bags arrived last night at midnight, so now I have my stuff plus some nice new Quantas pajamas. Dennis was going to use his little quantas bag as his boomerang bag (everyone else is using big orange duffel bags), which I'm sure the air force guys would have appreciated.

Last night we had a meeting with the biomechanics group and talked about our project. We're going to work on anchor ice. Usually ice forms at the surface where the air is really cold, but when cold deep water comes up, it can form ice on the bottom and on organisms. Basically when water is really really cold but is pretty deep, it doesn't freeze because there's too much pressure at depth for it to expand. But as it comes up, the pressure decreases and it can freeze and expand. This happens, for example, on sponges that can get huge clumps of ice stuck to them, then get ripped off the bottom and end up stuck to the bottom of the surface ice, which is obviously not good news for the sponge. We're going to try to figure out on what kind of surfaces this ice forms, like which organisms would be most susceptible to it, and how it affects them (does the buoyancy pull them up and how much force does it take?). We're also going to look for pteropods and anything else that might be biomechanically interesting.

I think the customs people cleaned my shoes. They’re wet and much cleaner than I remember them being. I’m glad that’s not my job.

SIR DAVID ATTENBOROUGH

Guess who is going to be on our flight of 170 (or 107?) people tomorrow morning!!!!


We got outfitted with all of our USAP gear this morning, which was pretty exciting. We are supposed to be at the Antarctic Center at 6am tomorrow morning to head out for a 7-8 hour flight. We pack a checked bag, a "boomerang" bag which they put on top of the checked bags in case the plane has to turn around and come back to Christchurch because of weather, and a carry-on bag. They gave us orange duffel bags to pack all of the clothes they issued us, but we have to wear the parka, "bunny boots," and have gloves and hats and stuff with us on the plane.

Christchurch, NZ

We made it to Christchurch, although our bags did not. We've been promised that they will arrive this afternoon, and we got some really nice quantas attire to wear in the meantime.


Yesterday we went downtown and walked around Christchurch and sampled some New Zealand beer. Apparently Tui beer in New Zealand is NOT the same as a similarly named (but differently spelled) beer in Australia, and suggesting that it might be is NOT acceptable. Probably less so if you're in a large group of clearly American tourists with cameras. The New Zealand Tui beer is excellent. We also took some pictures of a statue of Scott, who I'm sure we will hear a lot more about.