So since my last post I have gone from working nights to working the day shift around Christmas and things down here have been quite interesting since. Our very last night shift I was out on the snow road between McMurdo and the airfield in the Kress and was able to get the big machine up to speed quite easily with how good the road was, fast forward a week the Kress was parked due to soft snow conditions and that is where things got crazy. We had a few days right after New Years where the temps were in the 40's and the snow started to melt all over the area. The transition from the dirt road from Ross Island to the ice shelf melted out into a pool about 18 inches+ deep of water. The last 3 miles of road into the airfield went soft and started to look like it did last year. The entry into the airfield had puddles of water 18 inches deep and the walk around town at the airfield because a trek just to get to the bathroom. The worst part of this, the main runway that the wheeled aircraft (C-17, 757 and Airbus) land on soon turned into a pool of water about 4 feet deep. So since early January that runway has been closed to all aircraft. Well what does that mean you ask, well everybody who will be coming down for winter or to work with the vessel will fly in on the LC-130's from Christchurch and those leaving here will have to fly out as well on the LC-130's. We have not had wheeled aircraft land here since the end of November when we transitioned to Pegasus from the Ice Runway. Also during all this time the weather and aircraft have always cooperated for us to get all the flights in that we need to. Some field camps were closed early, other field camps were never even put in. So even more science has been effected this season. I now feel bad for everyone who may have to come back down here next year just to finish off their research for their studies and those who may have to be bumped back a year do to it as well.
Not only has the airfield caused problems this year but so has the weather. The weather that I am speaking of happened just one week ago tomorrow. There were predictions of a weather system passing through the area as early as last Thursday with high winds. Normally this isn't that big of a deal but we were in the middle of vessel offload/onload when it was going to hit. Luckily everything that needed to come off the boat was able to get off, bad news is not everything that needed to get back on did. During the daytime Thursday the call went out for line handlers to help tie up a few more line to the resupply vessel so it would be more secure, by 12:30 this was complete. By 8:30pm the winds had hit and things got crazy. The resupply vessel decided that it was time to leave and leave behind cargo that still needed to get on for 2 reasons, #1 the wind, #2 the ice pier that it was tied up against and everyone was working on started to fail and fall apart. There were gusts of 50+ knots when the captain said it was time to go. They decided to wait for the ice breaker to show up and see if they could help pull the bigger vessel out from out bay. The breaker attempted to get into position 3 times to make this maneuver but failed each time. In the end after 3 hours of waiting and trying to leave the resupply ship decided to stay in the bay for the night and give it a chance when the winds died down. At 3:30am Friday I was alerted to the needs for line handling, I went and check out my window and saw that they ship was getting ready to leave but the winds didn't die down. The big ship tried to go out on its own but wasn't successful and was retied up for the day. At 3:00pm we assisted with more lines to secure the vessel through Sunday, at 7:00pm the captain heard of an oncoming weather report and decided it was time to go. We casted off the ship at 7:20pm Friday night with 150 containers and vehicles left behind that were not able to make it onto the boat. This same storm that came through and the one on Saturday base broken out large chunks of ice from the ice shelf that we drive on and our runways are located on, had damaged both the fresh water intakes here at McMurdo and at Scott Base, destroyed our ice pier and exposed parts of the island to water that we have never seen down here before. This has now put us into a situation were we are locating and trying to get everything together that needs to fly out before winter hits and sent back north on aircraft that can only carry around 10,000 pounds of cargo for the 8 hour flight to Christchurch along with around 700 people that need to fly home on a plane that can carry 44 passengers at a time. So a logistics nightmare is occurring down here. Luckily there are individuals who are making sure that we all get out of here safely but so does the cargo that needs to go north. I am hoping to get out of here on my regular day of February 24th but I may be here a few days longer due to the situation. I am ok with this and will be going back to the Rockies in March for season #3. Other than the problems that I have talked about here things are going great down here.
I hope you all enjoy this update and the photos. Till next time.
Tim
