My morning began bright and early today! My roommate woke up with jet lag at 2am and powered up her computer to check Facebook. Mistaking the warm golden glow of her laptop screen for the dawning sunlight, I arose, anticipating the day ahead.
Today was our only full day in Christchurch, New Zealand, and would be a busy one.
We were picked up at our hotel by a Super Shuttle. It is a nifty 15-passenger van that drives you wherever you need to go, and has a little trailer hitched to the back which holds a deceptively large amount of luggage!
View of the open trailer from the inside. My bag is the army green duffel at the bottom right.
The shuttle took us to the USAP CDC... the United States Antarctic Program's Clothing Distribution Center. This is the place where all of the Extreme Cold Weather gear is housed and distributed.
The USAP CDC is part of a large International Antarctic Center that features a cafe, store, exhibits, and an Antarctic weather simulation chamber.
Before we could get our hands on all that good stuff, we had to go through orientation. This basically meant that we watched four videos to prepare us for various aspects of going to Antarctica. The last one was about the clothing that would be issued to us for the program.
Watching the orientation videos. There were large screens on both ends of the room.
Finally, we went into changing rooms, where we found 2 big orange duffel bags waiting for us with all of our gear.
Two bags full of issue gear and a checklist for each of us!
We spent nearly 2 hours taking each piece out, trying it on, making sure it fit, checking each zipper, button, and pocket. Good thing, too... Tiffany got a glove with no pinkie, I got fleece pants that barely went past my knees, and Erin got a coat so big that it could have been a gown!
We call the heavy parka "Big Red" for short. Granted, Erin is tiny, but her Big Red looks like it would swallow her whole!
If something was broken, ill-fitting, or just plain weird, we returned it and got new ones, until we liked and fit properly into everything we had.
At the end of the morning, we had two big orange duffle bags weighing about 30 pounds, and filled with the following: a parka (Big Red), a windbreaker (Lil' Red), a fleece, a baselayer (thermal) fleece, a baselayer (thermal) top, snow pants, two pairs of fleece pants, baselayer (thermal) pants, two pairs of socks, bunny boots, a balaclava, a hat, snow goggles, a neck gaiter, 2 pairs of liner gloves, work gloves, and mittens.
Examples of our field gear. Different teams are issued slightly different gear based on the needs at their research sites.
We were required to wear some of this gear for our flight the next morning, but anything we did not wear needed to be checked in. Unfortunately, the weight of these items counted against our 75 lb total baggage allowance.
After leaving the CDC, I went back to the hotel and spent the rest of the day repacking. I was already over 75 lbs when I arrived in Christchurch, and the addition of these items put me way over! So I had to decide what to leave behind, what to pawn off on my teammates, and what to take.
The next morning, when we arrived back at the USAP building to check in our luggage, you could see a whole group of frantic passengers weighing and rearranging their bags. We were informed that the weight restrictions were strict, but that whatever we wore would not count against our allowance.
After all, the passengers themselves represent a wide range of weights, and the plane has to be built to safely carry them all!
Tiffany and I piled on the layers, and filled our jacket pockets with all of the little items that we did not have the space for in our bags. When we boarded the plane, they weighed each of us with our carry ons and all of our gear on.
All said and done, I weighed in at 180 pounds and Tiffany tipped the scales at 225!
I don't know if the world will ever again see two women gain so much weight in so little time... and be so happy about it!
Stuffed up and puffed up!