Winter Fly In a.k.a. Winfly is officially “open”!

Well here I sit after 2 oranges, 2 cherry tomatoes, 1 BaF carrot, 1 apple, 1 mini banana and 1 bowl of Orange Chocolate Chip ice cream plus a 16 ounce can of Red Bull and my stomach is feeling “awesome”. I just got back from the airfield after the 1st of 7 flights, 4 of which are NVG or Night Vision Goggle flights. The flight was supposed to come in on Friday but after a 24 hour mechanical delay, followed by a 19 “weather” delay it finally left this Sunday just after 1pm Christchurch time. On the flight were 7 fellow firefighters that were gracious enough to bring 1) a shopping bag with cherry tomatoes, grapes, oranges and mini bananas 2) big as f*** (BaF) carrots 3) apples and 4) a BIG bag-o Nuts. Oh how gracious my fellow firefighters are. While we received this group of returning firefighter we, more importantly I, lost 2 firefighters (Scott and Peter) of which I am glad to call my friends. They both went home due to family problems which is extremely unfortunate.

We begin the airfield shift by waiting outside of town about ½ mile as to not cause to much exhaust induced fog over the runway and apron since the C-17 pilots are landing using their night vision goggles. As I sit there, in the driver’s seat of Red 3, a 2005 Ford F-550 4x4 with an ARFF package on the body, I am explaining to my fellow firefighter, whose is ironically named Corey as well, what our specific role and response will be if something should arise. (See Corey and Peter along with Grant arrived on the truly last flight of Mainbody on the 5th of March 2010. The last few weeks for them have been a learning curve to get up to speed on the workings of the ARFF vehicles and procedures. Peter however was just lucky to get pictures since he already knew that he was going home on the 1st flight.) Now with the procedure and response explained I showed him how to use the wonderful joystick that controls the front turret. The turret can spray both firefighting foam and dry chemical extinguishment agent. It is pretty slick if I may say so myself, which I may since it is my blog. It reminds me of the movie character named Jar Jar Binks from Star Wars episodes 1, 2 & 3. With his 2 protruding google-ly eyes and long snout it looks just like the turret on the front of our rig. We sit outside of town until the planes calls 100 miles from airfield. That way we have enough time incase something is going to happen to get set up and still we are not there long enough to cause to much fog over the airfield. Then when the plane got to 25 miles or so the pilots asked to have the airfield runway lights shut off. Now this was absolutely amazing was to have the airfield completely light free and then have the C-17 swoop in like a “bat out of hell” and land with just enough background light to illuminate it. After the plane lands it has to turn around and taxi down to the apron, where we are staging and where it will get off loaded, in a slow stalking … no lurking pace. Just as the plane becomes visible in the dark of Antarctic night “Welcome to the Jungle” by Guns-N-Roses comes on the speaker of my Ipod. I, we actually-we the 2 Corey’s-, believe this is completely fitting since it is a winter “jungle” here after the plane stop flying.

Once the plane is down and beginning to offload we are able to get out and greet our new McMurdoians as well as the few Scott Baseians that come off of the flight. They all come off with the same look, or what I would assume is the same look, that I had when I got here on the 26th of August 2009 or a mere 355 days ago for whose who weren’t counting. They are, for the most part, here until February when they will be replaced by winter over’s, like myself, who will bear the cold dark hard winter. The lucky few will experience a whole year down here consecutively like I have. This will truly give them an appreciation of the new blood, the infusion of happiness, of giddy, of eagerness to get the job down, just like me.




About the picture:

This is a picture of me getting my Antarctic Service Medal with my Winter Over bar. It is fairly significant, to me at least. I know I am blurry but what can you say, it is hard to get an accurate view of my swaggah!

Stay frosty
-C