Saturday, January 30, 2010

Off the Ice

Well, we made it off the ice! It was snowing as we left, but we are now warmly back in Christchurch, New Zealand.

We flew back on the same type of airplane we flew in on: A U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster. Since it's the end of the season, they're starting to send home a lot of cargo, in addition to scientists. We flew home on a plane carrying one of the helicopters back to New Zealand. We watched on the ice runway as they loaded it.
Now, the season is officially over! It has been successful and productive, and now we are looking ahead to 10 months of labwork and analyses on the samples we took. All of our samples are being shipped home on the ocean vessel that will bring them to the U.S. after our return. Then, we'll be on our way back down again next winter!