Arrived!

Michael and Company arrived last night at Palmer Station on the Antarctic Penninsula. Since he's at the base now hopefully he will be able to upload pictures and we can see some of what he's been seeing. Then again, he mentioned that he might be going xc skiing on a glacier near the station today, so he might not have time to use the internet all day. Yeah, I'm here grading labs, doing homework, and attending lectures. He's out skiing on glaciers. I think it sounds like a pretty fair trade, no?

Here's several of his most recent messages to tide us over until pictures arrive:
"Around mid day yesterday we saw out first land in a while. It was Smith Island and man was it amazing! The lower level was shrouded by a cloud bank, but it was amazing to see the tall pointy peaks coming strait out of the ocean. Right about now we're supposed to be going through this spectacular strait, but the snow is heavy so there isn't much to see. Maybe better luck on the way north.

I suppose you know too, from my last email, that we are in the islands and it foggy/snowy. Even with that a smallish iceberg went by that was amazing with it's blue caverns cut into the side. Such texture! We will get to Palmer today, but won't be able to dock until the AM (friday) unless the weather clears. Apparently they have XC skis there where we can go ski on the glacier so Sonja, another USAP person, and I are going to go do that. I'll be ready to tear up the snow with my XC skis when I get kacb. ;)


We did get into station earlier than we had scheduled (bad weather buffer), so our return plans are a bit iffy. It looks like we will be here till Thursday night and then sail over to Hugo Island to work on a remote weather station there. We have 3 full days scheduled there and then be back in PA on the 9th. This Monday is supposed to be a Station break day so Colm isn't too happy about wasting a day sitting here (he wants to get back ASAP to take care of stuff). If the weather is good at Hugo, then we'll leave when that's done and maybe do a couple CTD stops on the way back to PA. If this were the case we'd get to PA early. From that I don't know if Raytheon would pay for the different ticket, so I'm not sure how that'll go. I'll keep you up to date as I know things. Just wanted to let you know.

I've been able very slowly get the class videos onto my computer. So far about 1/3 done. Hopefully that'll keep me busy downloading and watching for the next week."