It’s cold and blustery outside this morning. Snow is drifting and you bundle big red tightly around your body. It’s time to go home. Bag drag was yesterday. Two trips up the hill into the prevailing wind to building 140. Weigh yourself, weigh your bags show your passport. There were no x-ray machines in use. I guess they don’t think anyone will want to stay this plane from its intended course. The room looks very vacant now. Steven leaves in 2 days and for 2 nights has the room all to himself. We head up to transportation around 1100 am for the 45 minute ride to the airport then just wait for the plane and hope it’s able to land. Next get on the plane and 5 hours later we are in Christchurch turning in our ECW gear. There’s just enough time to go to the hotel for a couple of hours sleep before heading off to the airport for an early morning flight. After 13 hours and picking up a day crossing the international dateline you arrive in LAX several hours before and on the same day you left. It’s an interesting way to mark your return to the “real world”.

I can’t believe it’s over. The past week has just flown by. I’m really looking forward to seeing everyone again, especially Deni. Then March 1st we’re headed off to Tahiti for some fun in the sun. I don’t know if my body can take that!

Thank you for reading Bill’s Antarctic Adventure Blog.

When I went to breakfast this morning there was a snow drift in front of the door! Most of the faces at the tables are unknown to me. The last flights to the South Pole fly today after that, with the exception of an emergency, they will have no physical contact with the outside world until the end of September. I’m scheduled to leave the ice a week from today, February 24th, on the last flight out of McMurdo and that will be their last contact until August. When I came to work this morning I had to turn on a light in our work area for the first time since October. The sun sets, for a few minutes, February 20th. The end is so close now that I must accept it as reality. Even though I have great things to look forward to in coming weeks I’m feeling a little melancholy.

I saw a cool movie on Antarctica last night. It dealt with a phenomenon called katabatic winds. I know we almost always have wind here. Calm wind is an anomaly and now I know why. A katabatic wind is generated by the flow of air down a slope (like a glacier) in an area subject to radiational cooling (like the South Pole). It results in high velocity winds flowing out from the South Pole. The wind in many cases reaches hurricane force blowing snow grains so hard it feels like pins being pushed into any exposed skin. It causes erosion of rock and carves the snow and ice into amazing natural sculptures. It also makes for great movies of penguins hunkered down against its onslaught. The flow is so strong that it affects weather over the entire surface of the earth.
The temperature at the South Pole dipped to 42 below zero centigrade yesterday. When it gets to 50 below flight operations are suspended for the year so each day now there is an urgency to get the last supplies and personnel to the Pole. Then we begin to cleanup pack up and get ready to get the rest of us out of McMurdo. I think the winter over folks have a big celebration the day they see the last C17 leave for the year.

“After dinner tonight Steven and I went down to Hut Point.” We heard an Orca and a Minke whale were down there. We also hoped to see the C-17 on its approach. As you stand on the precipice of Hut Point you have a great view of the sound and the Royal Society Mountains beyond. A howling wind blew against our backs as we stood there. It was so strong you had to brace yourself against it lest you be blown over the cliff to an uncertain fate. As we stood there shrouded only by the sound of the wind rushing by our ears I heard what sounded like a human voice. I turned to find the source and saw no one. I looked at Steven and asked if he heard the same thing. He said he did; curious. After a few more minutes we heard the same thing again. Still no sign of anyone. Steven took a couple of steps forward toward the cliff edge and looked down. He laughed and called me over. What we saw was a lone Adele Penguin on the volcanic rock below. He was looking up at us and calling out perhaps thinking we were a distant relative he hadn’t seen before. Almost immediately thereafter we saw a Weddell Seal swimming near the edge of fresh ice that has just recently formed. He also looked up at us more out of curiosity than anything else I believe. Then another seal appeared. They were cruising the small area of open water that remained off Hut Point. We noticed that the penguin kept a close eye on the seals even though they weren’t Leopard Seals. After another short time one of the seals noticed the penguin lounging on the rocks. To our surprise he accelerated through the water and launched himself onto the lava toward the penguin. The small Adele sensed the danger though and scrambled up the rocks toward safety. As he went he was kicking rocks out behind himself toward the seal. The hill was so steep that the seal abandoned any hope of catching the penguin. He just stared at him for a couple of minutes then rolled over on his back stuck his head in the water and then slid back into the water up side down. The whole thing was great fun to watch. Where is a movie camera when you need one?

I went by this morning to pick up my membership card in the Ross Island Yacht Club of Antarctica. I’m a lifetime member at that. Just one more cool souvenir.

One of the things you do before you can leave McMurdo is affectionately called “the bag drag”. It involves packing up all your belongings, getting fully dressed in your ECW gear and trudging up the hill dragging all your bags to building 140. Upon arrival, after you catch your breath (assuming you just don’t die climbing the hill), you get in line with others who have the honor of departing on your flight. At the end of the line you present your passport, set your bags on a scale (you’re allowed 75 pounds max) and hope somehow you don’t have more weight than you arrived with. Then you have the dubious requirement of stepping up on the scale fully dressed in your ECW gear. Thankfully the only on who can see the results is the person checking you in and they are kind enough not to announce your weight. (Unless you’ve been mean to them of course). Assuming you meet all the requirements you leave your checked bags, collect your carry-on bag and passport and head back down the hill to your dorm to spend your last night on the ice. If you have friends they will often help you through the bag drag and honestly you can call for a taxi to take you up the hill. Steven and I helped Sharona with that process last night. Of course there is the obligatory exchange of personal information and the promise to keep in touch, ala your graduation day from high school, and then, the next day, they climb on a plane with no real expectation of ever seeing them again. You really do hold onto a glimmer of hope that you actually may see some of these people again. They have after all become a part of a new extended family.

After the bag drag Steven, Sharona and I went to see the Vaginal Monologues (The DVD not the live show). I thought I had seen this on stage before but as it went on I realized it was Deni who had seen it and not I. To say the least it is thought provoking, funny, sad and poignant. We then headed off to the McMurdo Station Sign (the place everyone has a Kodak moment) to take a picture with a banner that read “Happy Vday”. I hope and assume that means Valentines Day and is not related to the DVD we just viewed. They don’t have a special day for that do they?