This morning I reported that the weather in McMurdo was blustery, and it continued that way through the day.  It was so windy that when I took a 200m walk from the Crary lab to the Berg Field Center carrying a big sleepkit bag,  my enlarged cross section meant the wind stopped me in my tracks several times. I was heaving and sweating from the workout!   So it was no surprise when at about 10:30 am we learned that the flight from Christchurch to McMurdo, scheduled to bring our remaining ANSMET field party members southward, has been delayed for 24 hours.  Brian and I shuffled and compressed the schedule as best we could, and if the group can make it here tomorrow it won’t cause any major delays. Push them off to Friday though and things will get significantly tighter-  there are institutional lead-time requirements that we can’t bend (like getting your cargo into the system, fully weighed, measured, labelled and certified 3 days before flight). Because we currently are aiming for put in flights on Friday 9Dec and Saturday 10Dec and Sundays are a day off, moving everything one day later immediately becomes two.  So fingers crossed.  I can say that the wind has shifted and died down a bit,  but the sky is more overcast,  so something’s changing.  A new day dawns, if dawn was a thing here right now.

Just got off the satellite phone with John and Duck.  They’re safe and happy at Elephant Moraine, and during searching yesterday afternoon and this morning found about 15 meteorites, including a couple of cool ones.  They’re near an area we informally call “Meteorite City”.  We were last there in 1996-97 and we knew there were more specimens in the area, but local snow cover persuaded us to look further south in the interim.  They didn’t search for meteorites this afternoon, they’ve got 30 knot winds and are taking a break.   However,  they did see some helicopters flying around a distant part of the Elephant Moraine icefields (which extend for many, many miles).  It is probably the South Koreans,  who apparently have made day trips to the region to collect meteorites many times in the past few seasons.  This isn’t the right forum to discuss the relationship between our program and theirs (or lack thereof);  suffice it to say that Antarctica is an open continent and science preserve,  and the Antarctic Treaty specifies that no claims to territory can be made for any reason, political or scientific. They have every right to be there, and we’ll do our best to set a good example by not interfering with their work.

We expect John and Duck to be picked up from Elephant Moraine on Monday, weather permitting.

-posted by RPH from McMurdo