Well, the times are a changin' here in McMurdo and with the advent of a windy night, all the ice is gone! It's pretty amazing to look out over the deep and dark blue water and see a nearly constant display of whale spouts and whitecaps. (If you look closely, you can see the research vessel Nathaniel B. Palmer.)

The tanker arrived the other day and thus initiated its deployment of over 7 million gallons of fuel to our little island village. It should be all done tomorrow and then the vessel will come... and with it the infamous.... "offload." Offload is a magical time of year when the town is flooded with a massive Naval workforce and the poor little McMurdonites must work 12 hour shifts every day until the ship leaves. The bars close down to keep a lid on the rowdy out-of-towners and things are just... different. Oh well, no one at the carp shop has to work over time... haha.

Today marks the first day of my last week in Antarctica and I have realized for the first time that I am really going to miss this place. Like being away from Juneau and missing the rain, fishing and my boots, I'll miss the cold, my mittens and the powdered milk.. well, maybe not the powdered milk.

~G