Leaving the Ice

After leaving the Valleys, I had some time to kill in McMurdo. While dealing with drying out my samples, an ordeal that was more complicated than it sounds, I also did some walking. My friend, Nick (one of the firefighters), got a page about the possibility of penguins out at Hut Point. By the time we got there, the penguins had moved on but there were a couple of lethargic seals laying on the sea ice.

Even here, you can see the sea ice is starting to change. Since here, the powers that be in McMurdo have closed the roads out on the sea ice and progressively moved operations back to the margin with the Ross Ice Shelf.

I was supposed to leave the ice on December 16, but the flight was delayed in Christchurch. At 3:30AM on December 17, we were transported out to the Pegasus sea ice runway to catch our flight off -- a South African C100, which made for quite the ride. Cramped seats, leaking pipes, windows and all. All told, it took about 7 hours and we cleared customs faster than I ever have, with the exception of coming back from the Bahamas.