Engine #2

After 372 days on the Ice, this will be my final Antarctic entry in this blog, as I will be landing in New Zealand in just a few hours, only two and a half days late. We arrived at Pegasus airfield on Monday at about 1:30 and boarded the C-17. We waited. Trouble on engine #2. We waited. We taxied up the runway, and then back. Still trouble. We waited. Air Force personnel diagnosed the problem. We waited. 8:00. Dinner is over, so they brought us pizza on the plane. We waited.

We arrived back in town at about 10:00, still unsure of what was wrong. Our room keys were hanging on the housing office door. A note from RaJa said she was glad I was staying in town with her a little longer. Another from Bamma saying she has beer and pizza waiting for me. I needed a beer.

Tuesday passed. No information. Summer folks expressed their condolences. Winter folks laughed. Wednesday started out looking bleak. The rumor mill brought multiple strands of conflicting information, but eventually a new bag drag time appeared on the scroll, shortly followed by a transport time.

We arrived at the airstrip again just in time to see a snow covered C-17 about to be brushed off with a kitchen broom. No fancy de-icing systems here. This is a rather odd site; it has been a long time, if ever, that a C-17 has spent the night here. Their standard run is here and back in a day.

Oh yeah, the windshield too:

But after some warm-up and a practice acceleration down the runway, engine #2 was declared healthy, and soon we were in the air. The sun was setting behind us as we flew along the Transantarctic Mountain Range over the breaking pack ice and glacial run-out. The tiny window was a little dirty, but the view was still epic. A huge glacial tongue extending out into the sea ice:

Sunset light on the mountaintops:

The last light caught low clouds over the icy landscape, transforming them into a pink sea.

Until only the shadowed, ice-covered mountains remained.

For all I know, this is the last I will see of the frozen continent, and my departure is bittersweet. The friends I've made here are close and amazing. I know I will keep many of them, and hope to see them all again.

During the busy final weeks of my stay, I slowly regained some energy and mental capacity. I attribute it to everything: the return of the sun, the warmer temperatures, the increased energy of the station, and especially the greeting of returning friends. I became much happier to still be around, and sometimes even began to wish I was staying (though never overpowering my desire to leave). I felt much more comfortable than I ever did last summer. I realized that over the winter I developed a strong sense of ownership that dissolved many inhibitions that I felt as a fingee. Instead of an overwhelming world of strangers, McMurdo had become a familiar world filled with friends. Friends that will be dearly missed...