After five days of being delayed in Christchurch we have finally landed in McMurdo! It was quite the experience to fly in the belly of a C17 with no windows to orient yourself when the plane tilts or drops.
After about a 4 hour flight we landed on an ice shelf runway about a half hour bus ride from McMurdo.
Photo courtesy of Alissa Anderson
We are settling into McMurdo for just a couple days to complete the rest of our trainings before we head out to live in our camp on the ice. Yesterday we completed our Sea Ice Training which helps us to learn how to safely assess cracks in the sea ice and decide whether or not to cross them or not. The sea ice is where we will be living and working. We will only come onto land (McMurdo) for our days off every week. So far we have seen some Weddell Seals as well as a handful of Emperor Penguins from afar! More pictures to come in the days ahead!