Downright Balmy!

+5 fahrenheit today! When I saw that on the monitor this morning I chose to put on my light Carhartt jacket. Sure it was -13 with convection (aka wind chill), but hey, we're tough.

I wasn't the only one who made this folly. To repeat what my coworker Rob stated so eloquently, "this is still Antartica." I was trained on the bowser this morning, and I was cold. The bowser is a tracked trailer with large gas tank and 24 volt pump attached. It gets pulled behind a pisten bully:



After that, I sharpened shovels and mattocks until lunch. I sharpened some more after lunch, and then went to a 3 hour GPS class.

After dinner, I walked to the greenhouse with Nic from Bow, who is waiting to get to the Pole. A side note: no flights have left for the pole, as the temperature there is too low for the hydraulics on the C-130. So, flights arrive here at McMurdo, full of Polies, and no one leaves. This place is bursting at the seams. Anyhow, the greenhouse: I had no idea that this was in McMurdo. The greenhouse is all hydroponic and run by volunteers. I volunteered.







After, Nic went to the lab and I walked down the ice runway. In Sea Ice class, we learned how tides affect the pack ice. The ice freezes fast to the land, and the tides create a crack some distance off shore. Here, the tides are only around 3', so the crack isn't too large. Low and behold, the theory taught in class proves correct. I found the tidal crack while walking out the road.



I also watched a C17 make a pass at the runway: