At 5:45AM this morning, a shuttle picked up seven of us staying at the same Christchurch hotel scheduled to be on this morning's C-130 flight from Christchurch to McMurdo Station. Our group includes two UTEP seismologists from the TIME project, one Univ. of Oregon seismologist/ glaciologist from the MELT project (another Thwaites Glacier Collaboration project), one Polar Geospatial Data Center scientists, and three Antarctic Support Contract (ASC) employees/ technicians.
We picked up our luggage carts at the USAP offices and checked in our luggage at the USAP passenger terminal.
After checking in our bags, we wandered over to a coffee shop for lattes before coming back to the terminal to watch a 15-20 minute safety video, including information about the safety equipment and functions on board a C-130 aircraft.
We received an update that our flight would be delayed for 2 hours, but they proceeded to check us in and we went through a typical carry-on luggage security scanning process.
Now we are waiting again - I'm working on reviewing a grant proposal - and hoping we will make it down to the ice today!
The nearby tourist-oriented International Antarctic Centre has a nice display of inspirational reading to carry us through these kinds of waiting periods...
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