18 Feb 2016

2 Feb Voyage: Shokalskiy Visits Bases

We tucked into an early breakfast so we could make the most of the calm conditions and get ashore for a busy day touring McMurdo Station and Scott Base. The logistics of manoeuvring everyone to, from and around the bases went smoothly; staggered over a two hour period in the morning and again in the afternoon.

The morning was dedicated to McMurdo, a station that houses nearly 1,000 workers during the summer months and only a couple of hundred during winter. The temperature gauge outside the buildings when we arrived showed minus 30 degrees Celsius. Expedition team members accompanied base guides to show passengers around the National Science Foundation building, the Crary Lab, the Operations building and the Snow Chapel, passing the hospital, fire station and a variety of trucks designed for different tasks and terrains. We were also invited into the cafe (housed in the old Officers mess) to enjoy coffee and home made biscuits.

The majority of operations at Scott Base are all housed under the same roof which accommodates approximately 85 people in the summer and just eleven throughout winter. Film producer Anthony Powell was on site as he’s working on a follow up documentary to ‘Antarctica – A Year on Ice’. A climb up Observation Hill and a trip to Discovery Hut are planned for tomorrow if the increasing wind dies down overnight.