We finally made it to Antarctica!
The weather on Saturday allowed us to fly. We gathered together in the hotel for the first time. This is everybody traveling to Escudero to join the crew that is already there:
We boarded the plane and flew to King George Island.
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| Our airplane is painted to look like a penguin. Do you see it? |
It was an easy flight, which is good because the wind on the surface below is on the Drake Passage was blowing at 50 km per hour (about 30 mph)! I'm glad we were not on a ship sailing across it.
We landed at the air strip on King George Island. You are probably used to paved runways at airports. Ours is made of dirt.
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| Antarctic air traffic control |
We then walked from the air strip to Escudero Base, about a half a mile away.
We have been getting oriented to our new home and getting settled into the lab so that we can begin our research. We're now a few days behind schedule, since we were stuck in Punta Arenas. So, we will 'hit the ground running', as they say! Sunday we will hike out to begin exploring potential field sites for our experiments.
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