End of an Adventure

I have arrived in New Zealand! The land of trees and birds mountains and smells and pretty clouds! The land where the sun rises and sets in 24 hours. Even though I've only been here for a little over a day the ice seems like a distant dream from my current beachy vantage point. I'm going to be driving around in a camper van with some other polies and doing some hiking and sailing and general adventuring around for the next month. This concludes my 90 south story and posting until one day when I return to the ice (hopefully next year). For now I'm leaving this site up as a reference for future polies, thanks for reading!

If you would like to start reading from the beginning click here!

I have made a few of my pictures available to order as prints here as requested, I ordered a couple as a test and was impressed with the quality. 

Ob Tube

Today I went to the observation tube. 

 One person at a time can climb down into the tube to the windows under the ice.

There are cool ice formations all around the edges of the windows. 

 You can see the underside of the sea ice, which was covered in really amazing crystals.

I wasn't lucky enough to be down there when a seal or any divers were around but i did see this little fish.

This is was the ob tube looks like from the fishes point of view. Pretty awesome!

Back in Mac Town

 The plane that came to pick up about half of the winter crew and bring us back to 'civilization' (aka 24/7 internet and pizza) had to fly over twice before it was able to touch down because the visibility at the pole was minimal. We all thought there was no way that it would land and the flight would boomerang but somehow it did. I was able to marshall in my own flight and then board it after many goodbyes and few tears which I admit I couldn't entirely blame on the 16 knots winds. 

Three hours later we touched down on willy field in spectacularly clear and beautiful weather.

 Erebus was amazingly clear and seeing mountains again was amazing.

The weather was majestic for a few hours and then started to cloud in. We are forecasted to have bad weather for the next few days and it looks like I will be stuck here until Monday, but that is alright the observation tube under the ice is open and the (positive) 10 degree  (F) weather is amazingly warm. I only needed a flannel and some leggings under my pants to be comfortable outside. 

365 Days

Today makes exactly 365 days since I arrived at the Pole. I have been in Antarctica for a grand total 371 days. It has been a fantastic year that is impossible to sum up into a few sentences. It has truly been an amazing and life changing experience. I have fallen in love with this place, the community and the people and can't believe a year has gone by already. Even though I'm excited for the next adventure I am sad and a little nervous to leave and head back to the 'real world'. I'm sure I will be posting a few more times, maybe once from McMurdo and once back in New Zealand but this will be my last post from the bottom of the world. At least this time around, who knows, maybe one day I will be back, I sincerely hope so.

Winter Over Medal Ceremony

 I picked watermelon nine and ten for the winter over medal ceremony. They were delicious as always!

I got a pin, medal, certificate and a winter over bar for my 'Antarctic Service'. I'm starting to adjust back to the summer mind set of things which is nice because things are much less overwhelming from that angle. It's interesting to see the different perspectives of the incoming people and how they interact with the winter overs depending on their past experience in the program. It is especially interesting to see how I perceive the new people and the new winter overs based on my current viewpoint.