A tale of two Saturdays.

As you’ve read from Juliane and Barb’s breaking news early this morning, our flight to Shackleton Glacier Camp was cancelled. There was the extra bonus of a 09:00 fire alarm in our (James, Jim, Ioannis, myself) room, and nowhere else in the building. The good news is, with the exception of four of our skidoos, all of which will be on the same flight as us, the entirety of our gear and supplies are in Shackleton waiting for us. The next scheduled flight to Shackleton is Monday, fingers crossed our names will be on the manifest.

In the meantime, we were surprised today at lunch with “freshies”! There was fresh lettuce, avocado, cucumber, and various fruits (apples, bananas) to which everyone flocked and filled their plates with. My personal after-lunch plans were out the window when I returned to the room and Mighty Ducks was on TV. Jim and I watched the final 30 minutes or so – talk about a blast from the past!

There is a 10k run tomorrow that a couple of us on the team have signed up for. But more importantly, we should be done before the famous McMurdo Sunday brunch ends. There’ll definitely be a report back on tomorrow’s events. I’m sure James will emulate the famous “ridiculously photogenic guy” during the race – me, not so likely.

The cancellation today was taken well by everyone on the team and the big picture is overwhelmingly positive. All of our flights and baggage arrived through to New Zealand on time (or even early) with minimal exception. We made the trip to McMurdo on our first opening, and all gear is staged in Shackleton waiting for us. We all really want to get out into the field and get to work. But the reality is delays are inevitable in this environment, and we’re posed very well for a successful season thanks to the hard work of everyone including, especially, those in supporting roles throughout McMurdo and around the world. When weather like you can see in the photo rolls in, with flagged runways and unconventional airfields compared to modern domestic airports, it is best to exercise caution.

Until next time…

-Posted by Scott from the McMurdo Crary Lab on 2017-12-09 at 16:30 local.

PS. Special thanks to Zeke in I.T. for helping get me setup so I could post this from the comforts of my personal tablet.