Leaving Christchurch and McMurdo

On Sunday in New Zealand I got my gear for Antarctica. This photo shows most of the gear, I don't quite have all of it but I was issued most of what's pictured.















Here you can see a cut away of the Bunny boots. I've always managed to avoid them, and this year I have the blue FDX boots like I had last year. The bunny boots don't provide the best traction it seems and aren't the most comfortable. The FDX boots are a bit more bulky but seem to be quite warm with fairly good traction. The first year I had Baffin boots, but they were slightly small for me and they don't stock the correct size. Boots are also important because they help you identify people outside when there aren't many other distinguishing features.















Another plaque from an appreciative astronaut at the Clothing Distribution Center (CDC) in Christchurch.


















The gate for the flight at the Antarctic center. We have to go through metal detectors and what not, but thankfully we are not required to remove our shoes as we are required to wear our Extreme Cold Weather gear or ECW which includes the boots. I think about 75% of the people set off the metal detector just because of the number of zippers and rivets on our gear.















The C-17 at Pegasus ice runway near McMurdo. If you look closely in this shot you can see some Norwegians with yellow duffel bags in the middle of the photo talking to a person in fatigues. The Norwegian Prime Minister was on this flight as he was going down to mark the 100th anniversary of Roald Amundsen arriving at the South Pole. He was lucky in that his connecting flight to Pole was immediately after we arrived in McMurdo while I had to wait a day in McMurdo to head south.















Here is a photo of the touch tank in Crary Lab which houses facilities for most of the scientific research being done on the continent. One thing that I will never get to do here, but always have wanted to is dive under the ice as the photos I've seen of it are absolutely stunning. The only interesting factoid I'll give is that the sea stars here can take about 9 years to reach an ounce in weight and can live to be over 100 years old.















One of the shrimp. I don't believe these were in the touch tank in years past when I've visited.














The LC-130 that took me to the South Pole in about 3 hours.