Getting to Antarctica One Way or Another

Nicole and Lauren in the left kayak and Alex in the right kayak on the Avon river.

I’m sure these delay posts are getting old, but we’re enduring another 24-hour flight delay. The weather looks good in McMurdo tomorrow, so the team is staying hopeful. While we’re staying patient, though, we decided it would be worth a try to see how far we could travel from New Zealand to McMurdo via kayak. We stowed our gear in 3 kayaks and set out paddling from the Avon river in the center of Christchurch. Navigating baby ducks, punting boats filled with tourists, and wreckless kayakers made us confident that we could safely traverse ocean waves and iceberg strewn waters. After about an hour of intense paddling, though, we realized our arms wouldn’t be strong enough to carry us the ~2,000 miles to Antarctica (and we had to return the rental kayaks…). Maybe we’ll try again tomorrow.

-Emilie with sore arms from sunny Christchurch