Jani and Minako here! we had a few fun experiences around town we’d like to share with you. The first is a trip to the Crary Laboratory touch tank, a place in the basement of the science building where you can actually touch many of the sea creatures you’d find on the sea floor around McMurdo. We were struck by all the bright colors in the different animals – we saw reds, bright oranges, browns, blacks, bright yellows, all comfortable in the cold, clear waters of McMurdo Sound. One other thing that was really interesting was that many of the creatures are very large versions of similar critters in other parts of the world – called giantism, being studied by one field party – so we held sea spiders larger than our hands, a pretty heavy flea-like sea louse, a giant, squishy worm, and even a diatom, a single-celled animal, that was the size of a piece of gravel! It was hard for us to keep our hands in the -1.6 C water for very long, and were in awe of the people who actually scuba dive here.

The second activity that many vets may not be familiar with is the McMurdo Museum. Last night, they cleared out the galley and put lots of neat artifacts on the tables from the past history of Mactown. There were lots of old food containers, surgical instruments and manuals, maps, record players and old records, medals and plaques from those who had been there, and a few printed stories. There were even some bowling pins and balls now in the museum because the bowling alley has closed for good! We used to love going there, with the day-glo paint and techno music and hand set pins. The museum is a really neat idea, and made us feel a nice connection to those who paved the way for us to succeed now.

The last picture is of a few of us on Ob Hill, which we hiked on a really beautiful day and got great views of the town below. On returning from the Hut Point loop today, I had a nice, warm fuzzy feeling when I finally rounded the bend and saw all of McMurdo town laid out below. It’s home in its own way.

Jani Radebaugh 10 Dec 2016

Pic 1 – Alex, Ralph and Brian, and Kevin (from another party) listen to Caroline talk about the touch tank

Pic 2 – A giant spider sits on my hand!!

Pic 3 – Some artifacts from the McMurdo museum

Pic 4 – Group photo on Ob Hill with Jani, Minako, Duck and Jim