Friday, June 16
Hello All, My name is Ed and I am a mechanic in McMurdo.
Yesterday we had a cancellation of our drop so the plan was to try again
today. This morning I woke at 6am to my alarm as usual. I grabbed my remote
control for the TV; while laying in a semi-conscious state I read "The
Scroll" (our local TV news of life and times in McMurdo) and sure enough
the drop was on for this morning. I was to join the search and rescue
(SAR) team at the drop site. The drop site or zone is Willy Field out
on the Ross Iceshelf. It is a 3000 foot strip of a 10000 foot runway.
About half of the town is at the drop itself and spectators are bussed
out just to watch. Of course, the best laid plans of mice and snowmen
always change, and the plane was an hour ahead of schedule. This forced
people and vehicles to head to the field in a helter-skelter manner. It
was the first rush hour I have seen since last September. I counted eight
sets of headlights at one point. All in all there were probably 20 vehicles
involved, including large Tundra-type cargo Deltas for hauling pallets
and heated storage vans for our "freshies". These freshies are a priority
in the retrieval process. The seven of us involved with the SAR team arrived
at about 9am and several crews were already on sight. We had burn barrels
marking the drop zone and the runway was lit up too. The scene became
quite festive and people were milling around the apron where we waited
for the Air Force C-141 to appear. It felt like a UFO from somewhere beyond
was reminding us that we can have contact with the rest of the world.
A few minutes before 10:00 we could see lights in the sky to the north
and we all got quite excited. Vehicles were in formation on the apron
like an Indy 500 was about to begin. There is an elaborate plan about
who is to do what. My job is to find the last bundle and make sure that
crews do not wander past it and out into the oblivion of the ever so dark
ice shelf.... not too tough. Soon the plane was over head and in one pass
dumped out 40 bundles indicating fresh food...yahoo. Each bundle weighs
between 400 and 700 lbs. Down they came at 80 m.p.h. with a parachute
to keep them upright. Two bundles blew apart and one slammed in really
hard without the open chute and buried itself significantly. Soon we got
the OK and all charged out to retrieve the goodies which took about 2
hours.... not one bundle hit the drop zone!
The 40 bundles looked like a stonehenge of sorts in the darkness. It
was quite humorous. One of the broken open bundles was freshies.... lettuce
and tomatoes everywhere. I had my first fresh tomato in months on the
spot. Back in town there is a lot of sorting going on and in a few hours
I will be able to gather mail and goodies. A pretty bazaar affair all
the way around. Hopefully my stuff doesn't end up at the South Pole by
mistake. More from down under in a while. Take Care all and Merry Christmas
in June :) Ed
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