On my way South!

I am typing this, sitting in a sling seat on a C-17 Globemaster. We are in the cargo area, and there are boxes and pallets all down the middle of the plane. A lucky few got actual airline seats, but I am sitting on the side.

We had to get up at 0500 to be at the CDC by 0600 to get our stuff together. We got dressed in our ECW (Extreme Cold Weather) gear, which we got yesterday, and dragged our bags down to get weighed and palletized. We won’t get them back until we land on the Ice. If our flight gets turned back, or “boomeranged” we will get our boomerang bag back, which should have a change of clothes in it. My boomerang bag is my carry-on luggage, so I don’t have one. I also have my backpack, and the pockets of my big red parka are stuffed with all kinds of stuff.

It’s a 5 hour flight to the Ice, and if the weather is good, we’ll make it on the first try. I don’t think any flights during main body deployment have been boomeranged, and I hope I’m not the first. It’s very noisy, but the noise-cancelling ear phones are working fairly well, so I can listen to music. There are about 80-100 people on this flight, but as we have been told, we are not as important as the cargo that is plastic-wrapped and chained down all over the plane.

It’s very strange to be in a plane and not have a window near me. There is one small portal window just behind the door we came in on, and a few in the escape hatches down the side, but other than that, nothing. There is, however, a fairly standard airline bathroom, so the facilities I saw on the LC-130 won’t be needed. I keep checking out the window to see ice burgs, but nothing yet. So far just clouds and water. I have to say that while it’s not Delta or American Airlines, I’ve had worse plane trips than this one. At least we’re encouraged to get up and move around.

There’s actually not a whole lot of turbulance, which is nice. It is rather warm in here though, which makes sitting here in snow pants and wool socks a bit hard. I’m glad I took off the sweatshirt I was wearing and put it in my carry-on, or I would have been miserable. I did have to take off the bunny boots (big white insulated rubber boots) because they are too tight around my instep, and making my feet numb. Plus, they’re really warm.

They make us bring a certain amount of ECW gear with us. Big Red (the parka), our snow pants, the boots, goggles, mittens or gloves, balaklava, and ski goggles. Most of it we probably won’t need, but in case of an emergency, it’ll be needed. The rest of the ECW gear is in my checked baggage, aside from some long johns and fleece pants.

The landscape as we approach McMurdo is breath-taking. Ice flows that have huge cracks in it, and as we get closer, there are fewer and fewer cracks. I saw several iceburgs trapped in the ice, but at some points you couldn’t tell if it was clouds or ice. We did get to go up to the flight deck to have a look around. I was the first person (besides the others on the flight deck) to see the actual continent of Antarctica. As we got closer, there were more and more iceburgs, and finally mountains. The mountains were incredible! Snow covered, and black where the rocks showed through. I took so many pictures it was crazy. I finally sat myself down and took a bit of a nap, but it was hard.