It has been a wondrous adventure so far, with the most exciting part yet to begin; moving to the sea ice field camp.
Since my arrival, I have been awe struck by the beauty and majesty that this continent contains. Here at McMurdo, we are situated on a hill that looks across McMurdo Sound to the Transantarctic Mountains that loom high above the horizon although they are nearly 100 km away. The air is free of most of the toxins that Man has spread across the globe permitting the mountains to extend their beauty across to the little Man-made oasis called McMurdo. When I first arrived here the beauty over whelmed me; flooding my heart with such magic and filling my soul with joy. The mundane stuff of picking up the luggage after the plane flight and checking in to my dorm room became secondary distractions as I longed to get out and get into this world of ancient ice and towering jagged peaks. Although I was not accustomed to the cold (Christchurch was around 70 F), on that first evening, I looked for a place where I could see this alone and internalize the magic of it all. I found a little nook behind the little church that over looks the sound and was sheltered from the wind. Although I was not used to the cold and was shivering, on that first evening, I stood there for over a half an hour looking out at the wondrous scene that laid before me and just kept repeating over and over, “I made it, I am here!!”. This has since become the place I go to every night before I go to sleep. The routine is that I stand there looking out, sighing from the spell that it casts over me, absorbing the feelings, sights, and sounds of this mysterious place.
On Friday night, we went over the New Zealand station that is about 2 km away to hear a talk by Tim Naish. He is a very nice guy and we get along quite well. In fact, he flew over in the same plane when I left New Zealand and we spent a great time talking about stuff. I hope that in the future, we can work on something together. The station is much smaller than McMurdo, with perhaps a 100 people there. Their bar has a very nice atmosphere to it, with a spectacular view of where the ice shelf meets the sea ice. In this transition zone, the ice shelf presses into the sea ice, resulting in the ice to buckle and get pushed up into crumbled tall towers of ice.
