beautiful poppies in the botanical gardens in christchurch
happy blossoms
tulips with the arts center in the back ground in christchurch
the curling area constructed in mcmurdo this winter- this was the only olympic sport they could get here on the t.v. this winter!
a proper set-up
a cable reel going to pole- we practiced securing it to a pallet during our pallet building class
the final holes for ice cube are being drilled this summer.
more pallet building practice
Scott base- the NZ (Kiwi) base here, just over the hill- they host 'american night' each thursday- we can go to their bar and gift shop and tour their station.... it's quite nice!
the Scott base view over the sea ice
fyi...
the radio station here.... i am tempted to do a season here just to have the opportunity to play with the 10,000 records they have here!!
receiving shinanigans
receiving in the snow...
more receiving fun.
Greetings from McMurdo station on the Ross ice shelf... on the edge of Antarctica.
i've been here for 20 days. initially, we are here to receive training so that all participants in the USAP are working from the same base of knowledge. secondly, we "physically received" cargo from the 'vessel'-(the ice breaker that makes the annual voyage at the end of the summer here in Feb. to bring the mass of cargo to keep the USAP up and running). we receive it here in mactown instead of trying to do it at pole where it is considerably colder and we have many more tasks on our plates! the cargo was mostly food, in 13 milvans and 3 milvans of 'housing' items. all of the cargo is shipped in milvans which is just another name for the metal containers you see on the large container ships in many ports. we use a 'pickle' aka M4K-which is a small green(hence the name) articulated forklift that is specially designed to remove cargo from milvans. once the cargo is out we open each box/crate and take each item out to insure that it matches what was ordered and write a corresponding stock number on each item. once this is done we put everything back into the milvans and close them up as they await the cargo team here in mactown to place them on air force pallets and load them into the C-130's to make the trip to the final destination of the south pole station. we were very fortunate to have heaps of volunteer help both from polies waiting for flights and various mactown folks who lent a hand. we expected for the tasking to take 7 days, but we finished in 5!!!
now, we wait......
last thursday i was due to depart on a Bassler which is a DC-10. it is the aircraft used to do the 'soft openings' at pole because we need to get equipment operators in to groom the runway so that the C-130's (Hercs) can land and communications specialists in to work in the tower for the flights, etc. it looks now like i will be on the 1st Herc, hopefully within the next few days. this season has had difficult weather and aircraft maladies.... pretty typical for Antarctica! i am hoping to make it into pole before halloween, we'll see! all in all things are going well, we are keeping busy with other departments and more trainings. i hope this finds you all well and enjoying a wonderfull autumn day. take care and be well. karengrace
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