McMurdo Adventures

Today we climbed "Ob Hill" as in Observation Hill. This the hill that Scott's men used to climb to look out over the Ross ice shelf and look for Scott returning from the pole.

 I climbed Ob hill with two stewards, the other RA and the heavy machine operator. We pretty much make up the youngest crowd of the summer crew.

 About half way up large clouds started rolling in and by the time we were heading down it started to lightly snow.

 All of McMurdo Station from the top of Ob hill.

 The cross on top of Ob hill was placed there by Scott's crew after it was discovered that Scott died on the return trip from the South Pole in 1911.

After climbing Ob hill we went to the station coffee shop. There is also a movie lounge in the same building. It is very cozy and nice.  

 After the coffee shop we went on a tour of some of the labs. This was the touch tank, the crab looking thing is a sea louse, the yellow guy is a sea lemon. There was also a fish, nudibranch,star fish and anemone. The water was -1 degrees (same as the water in bay beneath the ice). The lab is running experiments on the effects of ocean acidification and warming.

 This is part of the galley, the food was very good and there were a lot more options than I was expecting. The galley is pretty packed around meal times. There is a clock in the dinning hall that has a map of Antarctica and all of the numbers are marked with a big N for north.

 After lunch we walked down to see Discovery hut. This is the hut that Scott built in 1902.

 We found a seal!

Erebus bay is a Weddell seal breeding ground in a month or so there will be many seals in this area. The penguins will also start their migration in the next few months, I am a little too early to see that, but maybe I'll be lucky on the way back next year!

 The view across the bay to mainland Antarctica.

 Great day! The temperature was about zero degrees fahrenheit but with wind chill felt around -21 F. With big red I never felt cold, just around the face a little, nothing really that bad though. You can always check the weather conditions on the screens in the galley and in the lounges and also on the internet for McMurdo and for South Pole.

I'm scheduled to fly to Pole sometime in the next three days, so excited!