Punta Arenas, Chile

Hi all,
We flew into Punta Arenas yesterday afternoon on one of the scariest flights of my life. The pilots decided it was perfectly safe to land the plane in 65 Knot (about 75 mph) winds. It is one thing to hit some turbulence at 30,000 feet, but to have constant turbulence while banking to circle the runway and looking straight down at the water about 300 feet below was a little crazy. About 2 seconds before we touched down, the pilot hit the gas again, causing us to do about three large bounces on one wheel before landing and stopping about 30 feet short of the end of the runway. When we were stopped at the terminal, the plane still felt like it was in turbulence because the wind was bouncing us around so much. In fact, some of our guys could not get their baggage because the luggage handlers were afraid to open the cargo hold. I think they were afraid either the doors would whip open to fast or the open cargo hold would act like a sail and turn the plane around. I can´t wait until we fly down to our runway in Patriot Hills, Antarctica, which is blue ice scraped clean from the polar winds.
Anyway, we have all of our backpacks and group gear packed up and ready to go on the plane tomorrow. We brought down 13 days of food from the States and picked up some additional ¨emergency rations¨ in case we get stuck down on the ice. Know all we have to do is wait for the winds to die down at our landing strips in Partiot Hills, Antarctica so it is safe to fly in. We are flying in on an ¨Aleutian¨ which is one of the biggest Russian military jets ever made. This sucker is big enough to haul snow plows and trucks 2000 miles and land them on the ice. If all goes well, we will get the call to fly about 5 o´clock tomorrow morning (1 o´clock Denver time). I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. I had some King Crab pancakes and a toast for all of you.