tourists

This was hard for me to believe, but there were tourists at McMurdo today.  It was very odd.  They were all wearing matching bright yellow jackets with red deflated life vests.  (I’m sure they were jealous of our Big Red.)  They came in a few separate crowds.  I didn’t really know what to think so I asked my co-workers and here is some information I gleaned, none of which is verified because I didn’t look into it.  But apparently there are “Antarctic Cruises” and when the ice edge gets close enough, the ships come in and taxi the guests over to McMurdo via helicopter.  What a great vacation that would be (I say that because of the helicopter ride)!  From what I was told these cruises cost in the ball park of over $1,000 a day.  They said they were usually at least 2 week cruises.  That’s easy math and it adds up to A LOT (roughly).  So I guess you could say I saw some really rich people today.

Unfortunately for the really rich people it was cloudy and overcast again today.  And COLD.  You don’t have to tell me that I’m in Antarctica and that I should expect it to be cold because I know that and I’ve heard that.   But I was getting used to the sunny, mild days where I didn’t have to wear a jacket.  It is odd, even then the temperature was in the 30’s but here it didn’t seem too cold.  I would never have gone without a jacket back home if it was in he 30’s so I don’t understand the difference, I wonder if it’s all mental.  Back to today, the temperature of the air hovered right below 20F (not bad really), but the wind chill kept it feeling more like it was around 1-3F.  I know I’ve mentioned how ridiculous and angry that wind is and I’ve put some thought into it.  (Disclaimer:  This is not backed by anything resembling science, but just what I’m thinking.)  For miles and miles and miles, there is nothing to block the wind so it just gains speed and malice.  And the surface it is blowing over for all those miles is frozen solid, be it ice or permafrost so that adds to the sheer anger of it.  Then it hits these tiny (relative to everything around here), intruding humans and lets them know all about it.