I have now been in Christchurch for 9 days, and the current estimate is that I’ll be here for another 5 days.
I know that folks are working as hard as they can behind the scenes to get us deployed as quickly as possible, but there are a number of individual operational issues that are causing a cascade of flight delays.
In the meantime, we’ve all been instructed to be as cautious as possible. I’m going outside once a day for exercise, getting all meals delivered, and generally trying to stay as isolated as possible. The goal is to minimize the risk of catching COVID, which would result in me either being removed from the flight or inadvertently bringing COVID down to the station.
Yesterday I made it over to the Christchurch Botanic Gardens. It’s nearby, away from people, and doesn’t require me to go inside any buildings:
The food situation has been hit or miss.
This Basil Pesto & Haloumi Bagel was delicious:
But this plate of “nachos” left me with many unanswered questions:
And, of course, the coffee situation is getting more and more dire.
I’ll be happy once I’m finally on a plane headed to McMurdo. In the meantime, I’m off to go make another disappointing latte and gaze longingly out the window.
Ice flight in (???) days.
