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Letters Home from McMurdo Station

The Home of the Blizzard

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

In Mac Town, we don't celebrate T-Day until Saturday. (For those of you not in America, Thanksgiving is always held on a Thursday.) To accommodate everyone in the dining hall, dinner has to be served in three shifts since our dining hall only holds 350 people at a time and our population has reached approximately 900. If you were wondering, we will have all the traditional foods, such as turkey, pumpkin pie, and cranberry sauce, thanks to the New York Air National Guard. We will also have some non-traditional fare, such as Antarctic Cod (Dissostichus mawsoni), courtesy of the fish biologists. Since we can't leave the penguins unattended, our research group will have to split in two. Paul and I will eat at 3 PM and then dash back to the sea ice camp so that the rest of the group can make the 6:30 PM seating. The following morning is the Annual McMurdo Turkey Trot, which is a 5K foot race around town. I have my running shoes with me, but I don't think that I will be able to make it back into McMurdo in time. It's probably just as well. I suspect that I would break my neck on all the ice around here.

We were hit by yet another series of storms. In fact, the camp was hammered by a storm just a few days ago. It has since cleared up and turned very nice, relatively speaking, although all of a sudden the sky is looking gray. The wind is picking up, too. I'm afraid that we might be in for another storm. (Sigh...!)

One of the explorers from early in the twentieth century, Sir Douglas Mawson, called Antarctica the Home of the Blizzard. Of course, he also built his hut in an area where 100 mph winds were not uncommon. (!) In general, the weather on Ross Island, where McMurdo is located, isn't as bad as that. Still, I suspect that we are setting all kinds of records with the number and severity of storms for this time of year.

The upside to the bad weather is that the sea ice has been very stable. For obvious reasons, when the sea ice starts to melt and break up, we need to be on solid land. So far, we will be able to continue with our experiments for a couple more weeks before we need to pack everything up and haul it all back to town.

Storms notwithstanding, the experiments are going well. These birds constantly amaze me by their seeming indifference to the weather. It can be -40 (with the wind-chill) and they still want to go diving. I can't imagine jumping into -2 C ocean water and then coming up to the surface where the temperatures are often well below freezing. They all must be very successful in their foraging since they look as if they are gaining weight.

Jerry, Paul, Robert, and Dave flew to Cape Washington last Sunday to census the Emperor penguin colony out there. Greg and I held down the fort at the Penguin Ranch, aided by a volunteer from Crary Lab, Peggy. It was a perfect day for the trip and Jerry was extremely pleased with the count. The only problem was that the Twin Otters, which are the planes that flew them to the Cape, were emitting exhaust or something into the passenger section. Everyone arrived a little nauseated after the flight.

Staying at the Ranch wasn't bad either. Since it was Sunday, we had all kinds of "boondoggles" coming out to visit our camp. The visitors are fun. One of the groups had a number of the Air National Guard pilots. A lot of these men are professional airline pilots who give up part of their vacation time to come down here and fly the Air National Guard planes between McMurdo and Christchurch and between McMurdo and the South Pole. These same pilots also fly missions to Greenland at other times of the year.

The planes are critical down here since they fly not only passengers, but a lot of our equipment and food. (Ships bring the rest once the sea ice breaks up and moves out.) When the flights stop in February, the people who winter over in McMurdo generally have no physical contact with the outside world until mid-August. That must be hard.

That's the news from down South. I hope that all of you have a wonderful Thanksgiving. I'm thankful to know all of you.

Be well and happy trails! I hope that your flights back home are trouble free.

Kathi