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Please Take One

After organizing goods, we checked in and were screened by Kiwis, watched a video about life in McMurdo and Scott Base (the Kiwi station), and were shuttled by bus to the plane. We were boarded three at a time into a Kiwi Herc (sp? short for Hercules), a big ol’ military plane, in which you sit on bench seats facing each other lengthwise down the plane, with webbing as a communal backrest. There are several different types of planes which they fly down to Antarctica. When asked about the hercs, the veterans said, “They take about 7 hours, they’re noisy, and they’re uncomfortable.” I ask, “So what are the advantages?” They think. There is no answer.