Well, today we were scheduled to take Helos out to Cape Evan’s Wall and do some fishing. Brad, Isaac and Sandwich were scheduled on the first flight with most of our Priority 1 gear (life safety gear), fishing poles, drill, fuel…basically the works. Marissa and I were scheduled for the second flight with our ECW and some non-essential gear. Sandwich is here with all of our gear before it was loaded onto the helo.
Trying on helmets before takeoff.
Brad, Isaac and Sandwich in the helo as it was warming up.
Taking off.
Sandwich, Isaac and Brad doing the Hero walk after their flight.
Visibility was not ideal around McMurdo but it was certainly flyable. However, once they got to where we were going to be fishing, the pilot could not see the ground. He told them two things. First: if they wanted to land, he would. But if the weather got any worse, we might have to spend the night. Brad decided to turn around at that point. On the way back, the pilot also said that conditions were moving toward similar conditions that caused a helo to crash last year and a team of French scientists and the pilot all perished. I think that the right decision was made.
I was pretty sad that I didn’t get to fly.
Isaac and Sandwich had never been in a helo before so they were still a bit in shock.
We had loaded all of our gear on the helo so we had to then unload all of it and put it back into our PB.
We decided to go out fishing after lunch. Here I am waiting for our team to get into their ECW.
On our way out to our fishing site, we decided to stop and visit our friends on the seal tagging team. They have a camp setup on the sea ice near the Erebus glacier tongue. However, when we got there, no one was home. So we left them a note and took some pictures of their camp and the incredible scenery that they see every morning. Keep in mind that they are living on the frozen ocean for the next two months!
Here is their bathroom. I feel that it was well named.
Views from their camp and Sandwich and I dancing on the sea ice.
Goofing off before we hopped back in the PB to get to our fishing site.
When we arrived at our fishing hut near Turtle Island, there were Weddell seals all over the place. The females are giving birth now and so we got to see little pups too. You can see blood on the ice from where the females have given birth. All the fat black dots in behind me are seals. We didn't want to get too close to them because they can weight over 1,500 pounds and are nursing their pups. However, one was very close to our fishing hut and we were about 20 feet from the mother and her pup.
Sandwich, me and the incredible landscape of Antarctica! Brad and our PB are also in the background.
Brad and Marissa in the PB.
There is not a lot of room in the back of a PB. Especially once it is filled with a Jiffy Drill, four flights, camp chairs, ECW bags, food, fishing poles (I fixed Barbie last night), tackle, nets, breaker bars etc. And you feel EVERY bump. But Sandwich, Isaac and I managed to have a blast in the back the whole day.
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