The McMurdo ice pier at about 2:45 am Friday (McMurdo time) as seen on USAPs webcam of the site. The Military Sealift Command chartered ship MV Ocean Gladiator arrived there on Saturday and is in the middle of offloading over 400 pieces of cargo, many in standard shipping containers.  The image above is a screen-capture, so I hope you’re not waiting for it to update-   the live webcam is (available here).

Hi Everyone,

I haven’t heard directly from the field party in several days,  but I’m not worried about them;  contacts in McMurdo relay that all is well and that the mid-season (more like 5/6th of the season) resupply visit by a Twin Otter took place two days ago.

In addition to bringing the team a little bit of supplies and a few freshies,  the flight brought out a lot of  gear, empty fuel containers and trash.    Also on board the return flight to McMurdo was a cooler with 181 meteorite specimens from Davis-Ward. The Science Cargo folks added several specimens found by COLDEX at Allan Hills and then locked it up and stowed it safely away in a freezer container.  Science Cargo assured me that those specimens are on schedule to  make it onto the cargo ship when it heads north.   Now we wait to see whether any more flights from Davis-Ward happen before the final moments of ship loading take place.

-Ralph, in foggy,  unseasonably warm Cleveland Ohio.