13 January 2011 Waiting For McMurdo Station

As the Oden continues breaking the shipping channel into McMurdo Station, the main U.S. Antarctic base, we have been enjoying the amazing view off the port (left) side of the ship - Mt. Erebus.Mt. Erebus is the world’s most southerly active volcano. It releases steam all the time, and it has a convecting (bubbling) lava lake inside it. It is located on Ross Island, just as McMurdo Station is. It is strange to call Ross Island an "island" because there is no water around it, only ice. We see the black rocky land surrounded by ice and snow, but not water you are accustomed to seeing around an island.

It is hard to image that there is water separating Ross Island from the mainland because you could snowmobile or walk to the continent! After 6 weeks of total isolation (except our meeting with the NB Palmer ), it is strange to see man-made structures again. We can see radio towers and some buildings through our binoculars.

We were originally due in to McMurdo the evening of January 13 (tonight), but the ice is thicker and harder than anticipated, so we continue our forward and backward pattern, making about 1 nautical mile of forward progress per each 4 hour shift. The new plan is to arrive at the station tomorrow, January 14. We then received word that snowy weather is delaying flights, so our outbound flight is now scheduled for January 15. I requested additional time at McMurdo Station to tour the labs, weather station, and historic huts, and i found out today that I have been approved for a 1-2 day extended stay. So I should be flying out on Jan. 16 or 17. But it's snowy pretty hard now, so we'll see what happens.