Five of us — Christine, Vinciane, Shannon, Jim,and I — made it to Christchurch today.  Jim is heading home asap (tomorrow morning, 5am shuttle to the airport) to see his 9-month-old daughter.  The rest of us have one or more days for seeing Christchurch and/or other parts of the South Island, before our flights home.

In the meantime, back in McMurdo — Ryan should be on a flight to Christchurch in a couple of days.  Brian should also be departing the ice soon for Christchurch, although he and Johnny are still trying to get out to CTAM to get the 4 skidoos there.  Johnny is also finishing up the end-of-season reports and of course will be the last one out of McMurdo.   We hope they all get out soon!

-posted by Devon, Christchurch, Jan 27