Hello from McMurdo

From 20091029-IceFlight

We're here!

I've arrived in McMurdo safe & sound. We made it in one shot - no boomerang flights this time. For those that do not know, when you fly to McMurdo from Christchurch, sometimes the C-17 turns around midflight if the weather at the landing strip doesn't look good. A five hour flight one way turns into an eight or ten hour flight only to bring you back right where you started. When you pack your bags you have one set aside just in case this happens. If it does, it's called a boomerang and you have to start the whole process over first thing the next day.

Despite our good fortune it was still a long flight in the noisiest machine I've ever heard.

From 20091029-IceFlight

Lucky for us it's been blue skies and sunny since the day we landed (24-7). Hopefully we'll see weather like this for the rest of the season.