We got the necessary camp duties accomplished yesterday — e.g., inventorying meteorites, organizing flags, inventorying dehydrated food — for the redeployment to CTAM.  With some more grooming , the landing strip also is now ready to receive aircraft, and we have great weather for it.

Image caption:  The new Davis-Ward International Airport, aka, our landing strip at of 11pm last night.  The two red flags mark the top of the strip.  Our camp is just barely visible between the two flags about half a mile away.

We just heard from Johnny that the aircraft is off-deck at ~8:30am from McMurdo to CTAM.  It will refuel there, and should be to us around 12:30.  Johnny and Brian will be on the first flight, and Vinciane and Christine will follow.  The two of us, and then Jim and Ryan, should be out of here tomorrow.

-posted by Shannon Walker and Devon Burr, Jan 19, 2015, Davis-Ward

NOTE ADDED BY RPH:   I just got off the phone with Jim Karner out at Davis Ward, about 2:30 east coast time.  They are indeed pulling out through CTAM after having plans changed and swapped and altered daily for about a week, so it’s been hard for them to stay organized.  They have collected more than 560 samples-  some small percentage of these will turn out to be terrestrial but it’s an impressive figure nonetheless.  And for those of you who remember our guesses on how much work remains at Davis Ward,  I win that lottery;  we’ll be going back.

For families of field party members,  I don’t have a handle on who might get to McMurdo or when. It’s going to take at least two full days and probably 3 to get everyone to CTAM, and we don’t know about LC-130 flights yet.  if the twin otter is going back to mcmurdo at any time it’ll probably take both people and gear.