Update 14: 100 days in Antarctica (and counting...)

[Paul Summers]

Hello all from McMurdo again,

We are still in McMurdo as a results of some flight delays, nothing truly unusual but now on the slightly longer side of normal. This also means that I have officially clocked my 100th day in Antarctica this season, which is a fun but unexpected milestone! Additionally, next week is the first sunset of the year, which although very novel, I wouldn't mind missing if it means we get home. We are scheduled to fly home on a C-17, one of the largest and fast planes which makes for a pleasant flight. However, the C-17 does not like to spend the night in McMurdo, so for us to get home it must first fly to McMurdo from New Zealand, pick us up, and then fly home all in one day. Given that this is a 5 hour flight one way and weather must be good at both airports and along the route for this whole time frame, it begins to make sense why flights are delayed here so often. Additionally, one day the weather was good, but the plane had a mechanical issue flying south and had to return to NZ before picking us up, called a 'Boomerang' flight as it returned to where it took off from without any other stops. 

In theme with all this, we just heard the flight today is on a mechanical delay of unknown length, but unsubstantiated rumors say it may be days. In the meantime here we've been keeping busy cleaning and re-cleaning our rooms, doing laundry, and keeping an eye out for more penguins. We have checked in our bags, so we only have our carry items which for me means 1 spare change of clothing, so lots of small loads of laundry. 

The ice has broken out even more here so we have beach access and many more penguins have been around which has been fun! Pete and I even made it out for a little beach photo shoot. He almost got caught in a little wave, but thankfully he stayed high and dry as his feathers aren't waterproof yet. 

The rest of this update I'll just dedicate to some photos (and even a video!) of full size penguins I took. The larger penguins with yellow on their necks are Emperors, we had a fun show of them swimming! The smaller ones are Adelie. The Adelies must hold out their wings to balance when waddling around, it's pretty cute. The two species don't tend to group together, but they get along well enough and there was no drama between them thankfully.  

I even attempted to upload a video I took, I hope it turns out OK in the smaller format I had to upload it in. The video is of the emperors practicing diving out of and into the water from an ice floe. You can even hear their call which is an unusual bird call to my ear. The persistent hum is the generator for McMurdo power as I was standing right next to the power plant taking the video. You can find it here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/Uxmk4ojYESmumX2s8

That's all for now! I will try to send an update when I'm safely back in the real world, but until then I'll be keeping warm and checking the flight status board here. 

Missing you all!

Paul