15 December, 2000

FYI answer 12/14/00

McMurdo will be resupplied, for the upcoming winter and next year's Austral summer, the first week of February when the resupply ship comes with eight to 14 millon pounds of supplies. A tanker will bring seven to eight millon gallons of fuel. It takes as much as ten days to unload these supplies. Then all of the trash from the previous year is taken back to the United States for disposal.

I was a movie editor again today. I also spent many hours working on the computer. I never thought I'd be involved in the mix of media and technology. I used a digital recorder and video recorder to do more work with editing our seal camera video. Cory has also compiled digital recordings from the past week of the camp and sights around this area. Our work today was mostly time-consuming because of the way that we had to watch and record through every thing at regular speed. I will be able to get my own copies of all of these tapes.

I am also doing some packing. We are scheduled to fly from McMurdo to Christchurch on Monday. Mike, Dan, and Shawn have been taking care of much of the equipment and getting it ready to ship to the U.S. or store here at McMurdo. There are many places here at McMurdo that certain supplies were checked out from, and they must be returned. I guess one way to look at it is for you to pick one room in your house, or a classroom, and think about where you would go to return everything in that room to where it came from. . .everything. We have been at this process since Wednesday afternoon. It is time to be done with it too. There are also our personal belongings that we have to go through and have ready by Sunday evening.

McMurdo is looking very brown this time around. The sun has been with us for over ten days now so a lot of melting has gone on. The crews around her are very busy trying to keep up with the water run-off. It is very difficult for some vehicles to drive from the land to the sea ice, which is becoming more and more cracked. I can't say that it feels like the spring I am used to, but it is more like the spring, I'm told, that it should be. I still feel the biting cold winds early in the day. The holidays are around the corner and it doesn't feel like that either. There are decorations up around the station, but with all that goes on around here, and no shopping crowds, I guess that's what makes it not seem real.

FYI

Facts of Matter in Antarctica:

Solid - 830,000 __________ of paper were distributed last summer

__________ - 25,000 to 30,000 gallons of __________ are used per day, on average, during the winter; 60,000 to 70,000 gallons of __________ are used per day, on average, during the summer

Gas - 25 liters of liquid oxygen are kept on board an LC-130 ____________