Greetings campers,
My time is winding down, but it’s been another great season on the Ice. Tonight I bag drag which means shIepping all my gear to be weighed and then palletized for the 8 hour flight to Christchurch tomorrow. I managed to win the ping pong tournament and celebrated until I challenged a Chinese journalist who was visiting from a research vessel that sent a dozen folks over to our base by helicopter, but it was a good diplomatic move for US-Sino relations when he beat me later that same night. A nice finishing touch to my time here the next day was a 45 minute snow mobile run out on the glacier to the area called Room With a View. The crane operator, JD and I shared a machine out there and back and enjoyed spectacular vistas of glaciers and ocean landscapes.
My dental services wrapped up yesterday and I awarded all those that lent me a hand with a signed certificate of dental assisting in Antarctica, which should add some muscle to resumes for the next round of contracts. The medical folks are all heading home, leaving behind one doctor and PA for the six month winter of cold and darkness, which I would like to do as much as I’d like to watch political commentary for the next 10 months.
Next stop is New Zealand for a night and then hopefully a last minute purchase of a flight to Bangkok to meet Pat for a week in Thailand and Cambodia. Then on to Florida to soak up the sun before making my way back to Colorado in mid-March. Hope your winter is going well and will see many of you soon on the mainland.
Cheers,
Bag Drag Bob