Sailors head to Antarctic on resupply mission

[unhappycamper]

Sailors head to Antarctic on resupply mission
By Chris Amos - Staff writer
Posted : Thursday Jan 24, 2008 5:51:24 EST

A detachment of 59 sailors is scheduled to travel to Antarctica on Friday to deliver supplies to a scientific station during the brief window each summer that the station is accessible by sea.

Even then, the Military Sealift Command supply ship and tanker holding supplies will rely on a Swedish icebreaker to get through to McMurdo Station, a collection of metal huts dug into volcanic rock that can house more than 1,500 civilian scientists and support personnel.

The sailors, from Navy Expeditionary Logistics Support Group’s Navy Cargo Handling Battalion 1 based at Cheatham Annex in Williamsburg, Va., will fly to New Zealand and then take a second flight to Antarctica, where they will meet the ships and work 12-hour shifts alongside about 50 Royal New Zealand Defence Force cargo handlers offloading 29,000 tons of supplies from the Military Sealift Command container ship MV American Tern, said Lt. Penny Cockerell, spokeswoman for Navy Expeditionary Logistics Support Group.

When they finish, the cargo handlers will load a year’s worth of garbage and ice core samples that provide information to scientists studying global climate change onto the container ship for the trip home.

The ship’s 162,000 barrels of fuel will be offloaded by station personnel.


Rest of article at: http://www.navytimes.com/news/2008/01/navy_antarctic_sailors_080123w/