My colleague

One of the joys of this position is the great, close relationship I've had with the New Zealand Catholic Priest who I've worked with since I arrived. He's leaving tomorrow and finally, today, got to particiate in a very meaningful ceremony nearby. New Zealand has had a long and close relationship with Antarctica, primarily because it's a great port to leave from for exploration down here. Thirty years ago last November, a tourist plane that came down here (they would fly out and around the continent so sightseers could snap pictures). The plane got off course and crashed into Mt Erebus, the tallest mountain here and the southernmost active volcano on the planet. Phillip got to make the trip today by helicopter to dedicate the site and a TVNZ crew happened to be there for the event. Here's the link to their story (which I haven't seen since our internet connection doesn't support streaming video well).

Greetings from the South Pole

Looking for work?

I learned today that Raytheon, who holds the contract with NSF to run most of the work down here, is starting to hire for next year. If you are looking for work and want your expenses paid to Antarctica, go to www.rayjobs.com/rpsc

This thought just scampered through my brain when I was replying to someone's email:

I'm settling in and really enjoying this, discovering that I like doing the chaplain thing a bit more than the pastor thing because I've got more opportunities to talk with more people about faith. Odd, huh? I think it has a lot to do with expectations: If I say "I'm a pastor" to someone, that seems to carry with it an expectation that I'm promoting myself or my particular institution or my faith ("Come to my church"). If I say "I'm the chaplain" that leaves the door open for most any kind of discussion about their spirituality and their faith ("Who is God to you?").

Phillip and I started putting these up around the station the other day and have had many chuckles.

Worship

Here I am leading worship in the southernmost chapel on the planet. We opened with a song that makes reference to north, south, east and west, which struck some people as a bit odd: compasses don't really work so well down here, since most everything is north!

Welcome Oden!

Each year, McMurdo is supplied with food, tons of scientific equipment, and fuel delivered by a cargo vessel and tanker. The tanker is the first to arrive, I think, in a week or so; the cargo vessel will be in around the end of January. Of course, the sea here is frozen - in much of the Ross Sea an Ice Shelf hundreds of meters deep allows our planes to land. Closer to shore, the ice melts a bit by this time of year - which is good for the ships trying to make it in. The first ship through is an Icebreaker, this year it's the Oden out of Sweden. We've been able to see her getting closer for a couple days and yesterday she pulled up next to our dock. Oden will continue to work her way back and forth along the channel she's cut for the other ships that will arrive later this month.

Anything new here is nice, and the arrival of the Icebreaker means we are that much closer to the vessel getting here. Also, in years past, more wildlife sometimes comes in with the icebreaker: penguins and seals can get closer to us and therefore whales sometimes come in for supper. Today is a gorgeous and clear day here, so many folk are loitering on their way to work or between jobs to look for wildlife and watch the Oden.

The picture above is the Oden with Vince's Cross off Hut Point in the foreground. The Royal Society mountain range is in the back, partly obscured by the clouds we had yesterday.