Antarctica 2013-2014: Saturday night in McMurdo, Antarctica

Another Saturday night is here. Finished work around 1700 and went to the gym and ran a few miles. The weather here is still not good enough to run outside, I don’t know if it will ever be good enough. The forecast for Sunday is not very good either, so it will probably be a day spent watching a movie or go to the gym. They have a brunch every Sunday here, not as fancy as it sounds (I will write about the food another time). Below are photos of a Fata Morgana, which is an optical illusion.

Fata Morgana, an optical illusion

Saturday is also my “assigned” laundry day. My roommate has an advantage, because that is his day off. He is working in the galley as a steward. Since the galley is open on Sundays, they have different off days. Almost everybody else is off on Sundays.

Yesterday they decided to start to sell alcohol again at the station. It was shut down during the “drawdown” process. I decided to visit the bar here on the station yesterday for the first time since I got here. Not as packed as I thought it would be, but I heard that there was a long line in to the store when they opened yesterday.

The alcohol selection is not that great here and they are pretty pricey.

On Arrival Height with McMurdo in the background

When the government ended the shutdown and NSF (National Science Foundation) got their funding back there was a sense of relief at the station. Fortunately we have not been able to get a lot of flights in due to bad weather, so there were still a lot of “laid-off” people on the station. I feel sorry for the winter overs that are trying to get off the ice. This week we have had one flight that arrived.

I heard today that around 85% of the people that were either sent back from the ice or turned around in New Zealand is returning. Anybody that had a contract to work here this season were welcome back.

Now there will be a mad rush to try to salvage as much as possible of this research season. We should know next week which research projects they are going to do this season. It matters to us, because we supply all the field camps with a med kit and we have to go through all of them and make sure that all the meds are correct. It’s a task that takes a while to do. It is also very exciting that the science is starting up again. On Sundays there are presentations from different researchers down here and from what everybody tells me they are very well attended. I have been told that there will potentially be opportunities to assist different research groups with their work here. I will keep you all posted.