Suitcases and Pie: Destination Antarctica

It's hard to believe it has been more than 5 weeks since I left the land of ice and penguins. In case you don't remember, way back in mid-November, I left to spend the next 12 weeks in Antarctica working at the Adélie penguin colony at Cape Crozer on Ross Island. The experiences of the last few months were so remarkable that I'm not entirely certain I didn't dream the whole thing. I'm going to try and do a few blog posts to give people a glimpse of what it was like to live for a short time at one of the largest Adélie penguin colonies in the world.

Getting ready

First, preparing to go to Antarctica is no easy task. There are numerous doctor and medical visits to make sure you are healthy, there are stacks of paperwork to fill out, and...there is clothing to purchase. I tend to be a cold person (physically I mean), so I was a little anxious about how I would cope with the weather in Antarctica. The US Antarctic Program issues every participant clothing and in theory one could simply use the issued gear and be fine. However, the issued clothing doesn't really have penguin biologists in mind. The boots are too clunky and uncomfortable for hiking all day, the outerwear is too bulky, you only get 2 pairs of socks and everything is about 70 years old. So I was advised by numerous experienced people to bring lots of my own gear. That set off months of online shopping, something I would use as a distraction while I was finishing my dissertation.

Essential gear (things I would have been miserable without):
Lots of socks
Boots (crampon compatible)
Down jacket
Baby wipes

I traveled light

Socks, socks and more socks!

Getting There

Traveling to Antarctica takes a loooong time. Travel for me (and fellow penguin science team members Megan and Ben) went like this: San Francisco to LA (1 hr); LA to Sydney, Australia (13 hr); Sydney to Christchurch, New Zealand (3 hr); and eventually Christchurch to McMurdo Station Antarctica (5 hrs) for a total of around 22 hours of flight time. US Antarctic Program operations for McMurdo and South Pole stations are supported from Christchurch so the day after arriving there, we went to the Clothing Distribution Center (confusingly referred to as the CDC) to get our issued clothing and our Extreme Cold Weather gear (ECW). In the end we are all supposed to look something like this as we boarded our ice flight.

Racks of "Big Red" at the CDC

Our trip to the ice was delayed by bad weather first by a day, then 2. On the 3rd day we went the the airport, hung out there for a few hours hoping the flight would go but were disappointed again. Finally, 4 days late, we board the C-17 and headed South.