The Penguin is Off the Ice!

It's official - as summer turns to fall, John's 6 month tenure at McMurdo station has officially ended. He's now back in Christchurch, New Zealand, where he's going to take a leisurely and circuitous journey back to Texas, and then return to Toronto.

In the final weeks before departing, he and his cohorts had a picnic, saw penguins, and got ready to be redeployed.


From New Zealand, he's off to Australia for a week or two, to visit an old York University roommate (they were both International Students), followed by several stops in Southeast Asia (Indonesia, Thailand), then to Honolulu, San Francisco, and finally Texas, where he'll linger for a little while before heading back to Toronto.

I sent him a new camera a while back and am looking forward to lots of photos from these exotic locales.

I also have a growing pile of boxes that he's had shipped to the house; mostly cold-weather gear he was able order at a substantial discount as an Antarctica worker.

The Penguin has landed!

Got up this morning at around 7 and as is my habit, grabbed my iPad to check email and Facebook. Lo and behold, John has changed his profile photo to this:

It was about midnight there but I noticed him on Google Talk and had a quick chat session with him. They landed at McMurdo around 4 PM (local time). He reports the flight was good, other than the fact that one of his new suitcases got cracked.

We didn't chat for a long time; he starts work tomorrow at 10 AM, and it sounds like they have fairly long work days. His travel day was long -- their shuttle to the airport picked them up at 3:15 AM. I'm hoping for a long email once he's got his bearings.

I suspect the next couple of days will be jarringly weird.

Good luck, John!

Delayed in Christchurch

John was scheduled to be picked up at 3:15 AM for his flight to McMurdo, but his departure has been delayed a day - his speculation is because of fog. The flight is between 5 and 6 hours (approximately 2,500 miles), and obviously there are few alternative landing places on the destination side.

Hopefully this will give him an opportunity to explore Christchurch a bit, which is supposed to be very charming, despite earthquake damage suffered in recent years.

His internet access is limited, but I'm hoping when he finally lands at McMurdo he can send some pictures. Actually I'm just hoping he takes some pictures.

Update: as of yesterday (Tuesday in the US), John was still cooling his heels in Christchurch, waiting for the weather to improve enough to fly out.

Update2 - Wednesday evening: just got an email from John that says they are still waiting on the weather in Christchurch.

New Zealand (but not for long)

Had an email from John when I awoke this morning. He's now in Christchurch.

Tomorrow (which I take to mean sometime later today - it's that International Dateline thing) they give them extreme cold weather gear, which includes red parkas, gloves and the like. Then the day after (Monday for us in North America?) they head for "the ice."

In related news, we are now a completely empty nest: youngest son Ed returned to Fairfax, VA to begin his junior year at GMU.

Enroute to Auckland

Talked to John earlier - he's at LAX, awaiting his flight to Auckland, New Zealand. According to my handy travel app, his flight, originally scheduled to take off at 11:40 PM, now shows a 2:40 AM departure.

Now that's brutal.

Since his flight is about 13 and a half hours, that will put him into Auckland at around 11:10 AM Sunday, local time. With any luck he'll still manage to catch his connecting flight to Christchurch.

At least he's traveling with a group of his fellow penguins - that should take a little of the sting off this 3 hour delay.