Made it!

We finally made it to Antarctica. We boarded the C-17 this morning around 12:15 and left Christchurch around 1am. There were about 120 of us on the plane plus a few pallets of cargo.

The total flight time was about 5 hours, and about 4 1/2 hours into the flight, this is what we could see out one of the two windows - our first sight of Antarctica:

Here is a shot of us unloading on the sea ice runway. The idea of landing a huge jet like this on floating sea ice takes a bit of getting used to...

Our first day was a full one: attending a few orientations, unpacking and setting up our lab, and getting settled into our dorm room.

Tomorrow we have a full day of sea ice training!