Yesterday's sunset...

Here are some pictures of yesterday's sunset as the light slowly fades away and another dark, cold winter begins in Mcmurdo Station.

Black Island...

Black Island is about 25 miles due south of McMurdo (78°7′S, 166°8′E) and is fairly easy to reach (if you have a helicopter). Otherwise it's a 7 hour drive over treacherous and bumpy frozen ice, travelling over McMurdo Sound. On a clear day, you can just see it as a tiny dot on the horizon from McMurdo. It's one of the most important facilities in the area though. Communications signals from McMurdo bounce off the satellite dish at Black Island and up to space, coming down at Brewster WA. This process is reversed for incoming communications. This includes phone, several types of radio, television, email, internet...the whole works. We are far enough north that we can "see" the correct communications satellites on the horizon, while the South Pole, which is 800 miles farther south, is out of these satellites' range. So when something goes wrong at Black Island, it takes us back to the old days in a hurry.
This article was written and published by my good friend Tom Hamann. For other articles by tom as well as his blog, please visit: www.bigblueglobe.blogspot.com

Whales on the move...

This is a small video that i took from my room window last year of some orcas swimming in the open water channel while the vessel was docked and we were offloading our annual supply of goods that are bought down on a cargo ship.

Welcome... and land scapes

These are a couple Pictures of our lovely landscape as well as our welcoming sign.

Last Flight...............

This is a small video of the last flight out of mcmurdo as the C-17 gives one last fly over the town.

Penguins and orcas...

These are just a few images that came from our common drive.
Penguins diving into the waters, A penguin and an orca, orca swimming in the open channel, Penguins playing on ice.

More Pics from the runway...

Here are a few more pictures from the runway. That's me standing on one of our cargo deltas, used to load pallets of food or other items on then bring them into town from the runway. Then there is the convoy of deltas driving to the runway in blowing snow condition, from the back view of the C-17 as it heads down the runway. Two people watching the skies and waiting for their flight.

You know win-fly is almost here when....

These are some pictures of the runway lights. For those of us lucky to leave here in less than a week, seeing those lights definately put a smile on our faces. Those lights mean that the ice runway is almost ready and the planes will be arriving here soon. On those planes will be fresh fruits and some vegetables that we have not had for about 4 months, as well as some fresh new faces and friends that we have not seen since the station closed in late february.

Landscapes, Ice Cracks, and runways......

These are some pictures of some more amazing skies and a burm with buildings out at the pegasus runway.

The makings of an Ice Runway...

These are some pictures of the Heavy Equipment operators starting to build our ice runway so that planes can fly in at winfly. Winfly begins late august and ends around the first or second week of october. Yes, that is not a typing error, planes do land on the sea ice down here, therefore the heavy equipment operators are always grooming the runway to make sure there are no bumps or holes in the runway that may cause any damage to the aircrafts.