Attempt II - January 6

Another 4 am wake-up call after a fairly sleepless night. I guess I was anxious about whether or not we’d get to go today or not. By 5 am we were all downstairs and ready to board the hotel shuttles for the short (5 min) trip to the Antarctic Center. Once we arrived, we had until 6 am to sort our bags: organizing what we wanted to take on the plane with us for the 5 hour flight and what was going into the boomerang bag (which is the only checked bag returned to us if we can’t land due to weather). We had to have/wear the main components of our extreme weather gear on the flight. This meant dressing in thermals leggings, t-shirt, wool socks, fleece, red down filled parka and wearing those oh so styling “bunny boots”. Pockets stuffed with hat, gloves and goggles.

We went through Antarctic immigration, checked our bags and were issued boarding passes (yellow laminated cards on a chain, with a number.. I was #52) Then we could hit up the cafeteria at the Antarctic Center at 7 am for much needed food and coffee. When we went back to the boarding area for our info movie about the trip we all noticed that our fellow passengers had arrived. Sir David and all his BBC film crew. I got up the nerve to go over and introduce myself to him and had a quick chat about how his documentaries were some of the first introductions we all had to biological research and the importance of continuing to spread the word of our research with the general public.

(Here's one for framing!)

We then went through security, boarded a bus that took us to the airfield. On our way to our plane (C17), we were handed our bagged lunch and a bottle of water by some very lovely military personnel. We then grabbed seats and got settled in for our extremely noisy 5 hour flight.

(Back section of the plane, view from my seat)

We were up in the air by 9 am… right on schedule. I napped the first hour, finished one of my books over the next few hours (thanks Kimberley it was a great one!!) and then had some lunch at noon.

(Contents of brown bagged lunch)

By the 4 hour mark the energy level started to build in the plane… we could see ice flows and parts of the polar ice cap out the teeny round door windows (only 4 for the whole plane). Then… by the 4.5 hr point the pilot made an announcement “We’ve been in a holding pattern above McMurdo for 20 minutes now and the weather isn’t clearing. We’ll be turning around and will have to back to Christchurch by 6:30 pm”. The dreaded BOOMERANG! A lot of defeated faces as the reality set in that we’d be on the plane for another 4.5 hrs. Good thing I saved all but my apple, sandwich and granola bar from my packed lunch. Snacks for the trip back to NZ!

(Here’s the closest we came to seeing Antarctica today)

We give it another go again tomorrow morning bright and early. Here's hoping this one isn't another 10 hr flight to end up where you began!

johanne (now officially a member of the boomerang club)