Reflections from time on ‘the Ice’

• MCMURDO STATION, Antarctica
Nov. 30, 2006 | 6 a.m. ET
I'm grouchy. There, I said it. I’d also rather just go to bed and forget about the last 60 hours it took us to get here, but we promised a first dispatch shortly after arriving and here it is. I'm sorry it doesn't start with — "It's great to be here!" — but I've got reasons for that.

Let’s start with the bureaucracy. Uncle Sam requires that everyone traveling to its bases on Antarctica go through a barrage of medical and dental tests, and undergo procedures if required, so as to minimize the risk of someone falling ill while so far away.

Photojournalist John Brecher and I thought we had our bureaucratic ducks in a row, but we each got calls the day of our deployment. John’s dentist would need to send a higher-resolution X-ray that morning. I needed an X-ray of a root canal done the week earlier as part of the testing. My dentist wasn’t open that day, so with just four hours to go before our flight, I rushed to John’s dentist for an X-ray, then had them e-mail the image while we rushed to the airport. We still didn’t know if we’d get clearance as we walked towards check-in with 90 minutes to departure. That’s when we got calls on our cell phones: We’d just been “PQ'd” — bureaucratese for physically qualified.

'Lost in transition'
We beat the bureaucracy, but our journey was only just starting. Our Seattle-Los Angeles flight was delayed, forcing us to sprint between terminals to make the main leg: Los Angeles to Christchurch, New Zealand, from which U.S. military flights to the white continent operate. We made it, but our check-in luggage didn’t.

As soon as we landed in Christchurch, we launched Operation Bare Minimum. John rushed to a nearby mall to get us some boxers so that we’d be presentable for our next stage: trying on all the Extreme Cold Gear that we and others deploying to Antarctica would be borrowing from Uncle Sam at his Clothing Distribution Center.

It was not a pretty sight: Some 50 men in close quarters (women went through the same in their dressing area), each with two government-issued orange duffel bags full of clothing that we had to try on and exchange if something didn’t fit. Let’s just say those weren’t our finest moments.

Once that fashion disaster was over, we all had to have our laptops scanned for viruses and software that might damage the U.S. network on Antarctica. “We’re not Net Nazis,” an official insisted, just before the laptops went through testing.

After those lessons in humility, we did get a good night’s sleep at a hotel, albeit still without our “lost in transition” luggage.

We got a 5 a.m. wake-up call so as to make the 6 a.m. check-in for the flight to Antarctica. But at 5:15 we got a second call: Bad weather had delayed departure until 9 a.m.

A taste of Antarctica
Around 8:30 we headed over for check-in, where we were finally reunited with our lost luggage. Things were looking up — until we heard from Peter West, our liaison from the National Science Foundation, that he was just told he couldn’t deploy today because his dental X-rays show he needed a filling. So much for having someone to help us through any other bureaucratic hurdles.

After another delay, this one about an hour, we finally boarded a U.S. Air Force C-17 cargo jet. No in-flight video on this five-hour flight, just large paper bags for each of us with sandwiches and snacks, and an 11-man crew that included a serviceman who donned a flotation device to show us what to do in case of emergency.

Dressed in heavy parkas and thick rubber boots, we were all pretty cooped up inside what looked like a cargo hangar. Exposed wiring and signs like “Warning Explosive Device” didn’t help establish a comfort zone.

About four hours into the flight, three windows the size of grapefruits allowed a peek at coastline where the sea and sea ice meet. It was our first taste of Antarctica, but it only left me wanting to bust out.

Meeting ‘Ivan the Terra Bus’
I told myself, “It’ll all be good when we land and you’re on the ground.” When we did land, an hour later, that was hardly the feeling I got since we were quickly corralled into Ivan the Terra Bus, a huge snow machine, for a half-hour drive to McMurdo Base.

By this time the parkas and boots felt like a full-body straightjacket, and the temperature inside the bus was warming up from all the trapped body heat.

McMurdo finally came into view and a few minutes later it was time to disembark — only to be told to go to a briefing about housing and travel arrangements. It was the last thing we wanted to do, but what could we do? It’s not like we could check into another hotel.

Besides, things couldn’t get worse, right? They didn’t, until I was given the wrong dorm key (to a woman’s room, no less). When I did get my correct key, it opened the door to my randomly assigned roommate — who was snoring so loud I know it’s gonna be a painful week.

So that’s where we are. It’s midnight on Thursday here, or 3 a.m. Wednesday in Seattle. It’s also still daylight out, and it won’t get much dimmer than now.

We were told that long exposure to daylight can cause dizziness, and I’m already feeling it. I’ll sign off for now (John hopes to finish his photo editing in an hour), and we both promise to have a better attitude tomorrow when we finally get “on the ice,” as they say here.

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