The Dry Vallies...

The McMurdo Dry Valleys are a row of valleys in Antarctica located within Victoria Land west of McMurdo Sound. The region includes many interesting geological features including Lake Vida and the Onyx River, Antarctica's longest river. It is also one of the world's most extreme deserts.

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.