The End is near

Today I have 5 days left until I leave this "harsh" continent. It has been an experience I never thought I would have. It doesn't feel like it was very long ago, when I was offered the job. It has been tough at times to be away from my family for this long (5 months).

It is going towards winter here now. It has been significantly colder and the last few days it has been very windy. The population on station is getting smaller everyday. Today I think we are down to around 520. By the weekend I think we will be down to around 350. We are a big group leaving on Monday and then there are a few more that are staying until sometime in March. Over the winter there will be around 120 people here.
The icerunway at Pegasus field is still not good enough to have wheeled aircrafts to land on it. So our return trips to Christchurch is done in LC-130s, it is a long and loud trip. It has also meant that people are getting "bumped off" due to weight and balance and they have to spend an additional day here in McMurdo. I hope that will not happen to me..... I am ready to go home.

The Ice pier, or what is left of it

The last few days left of work in the clinic will be spent helping the winter over medical team to get prepared for winter. Once the last flight leaves the continent, the next scheduled flight is not arriving until end of August. Hopefully there will not be a need for a winter Medevac this year. Last year they had 2 after the station had closed for winter.

Packing up summer charts

Dr Allen and Dr Reyes making pretzels

An Adelie Penguin

An Adelie Penguin diving in to the water

In two days we will have the first sunset since October. It is already significantly darker at night and the sun is very low on the horizon during the night. The sun will set for the last time of the summer beginning of May and not go up until mid August. It is a long and dark winter here. I admire the people that decides to stay here for the winter.

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Back in Christchurch

I am back in Christchurch again. This is my third medevac this season. None of the other has been as crazy as the first one. It has been good that there hasn't been any more, because it means that people has stayed healthy and nobody got seriously injured during the season. For me personally it has been pretty "boring" season. At this stage it doesn't really matter to me if I do more medevacs. It is a very long ride on a LC-130 to Christchurch from Antarctica, approx 7 hours to get here and 8 hours to get back. It is a very noisy and uncomfortable ride, I will never complain again when I fly on a regular airliner.

It looks like the C-17s are not going to make it down there before the end of the season due to the poor condition of the ice runway. It has been nice to have an extra day here in Christchurch and we spent it by just walking around and look at different sights and enjoying the warm weather, different foods and the humidity. I only have 2 1/2 weeks left before I am heading home. I am really looking forward to go home. 5 months is a long time to be away from my family.

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