Greetings my friends. Happy AFTER St. Patrick's day. How does your head feel? :)
How the heck are you? I'm giggling at myself at the moment. I can tell that I am ready to be off the ice. I'm sitting in my office, lights off, only the glow of my twinkle lights, listing to R.E.M. and wanting to just sleep... And it's 8:30am... Yes, in "ice-talk" I am what you call "Toasty". I think for the most part, the whole station is toasty. It's been a wonderfully adventurous season. Full of yacht and cruise ship visits, lots of science and a unforeseen trip for me back to Chile/Argentina over Christmas to get a root canal. But oh what fun the ride back to Palmer Station was on the National Geographic Explorer. :)
The last week saw our last two cruise ship visits. We went out in a big way.. Two ships in one day. Morning visit was the Orlova (123 passenger's), which brought us Roberta Marinelli. of NSF( National Science Foundation ). She is one of 5 people that fund the science for the Antarctic program. She is our guest until the LMG (big orange ship) departs on the 21st of March. It's been very fun to meet her and show her Palmer Station. The afternoon brought us the Plancius (138 passenger's) and Dave Bresnahan. A guy who use to work here back in the 80's and is currently working for one of the companies that is re-bidding for the Antarctic Contract. And don't forget the brownies... Lots and lots of brownies...This season we saw 16 cruise ships (1093 people) that came for a tour and coffee and brownies, 12 yachts (93 people) that came for a tour and meal with staff on station and 5 off-shore lectures for large cruise ships (those with to many passengers to tour around station aprox 600-1000 people on board) I know this only because I just finished my end of season report.. :)
Last week also brought us the first tall ship to visit Palmer Station. The Bark Europa. She is a beauty. They came for supper and then invited us out for drinks, dancing on deck to a fiddle and climbing the mast. It was a magical evening.
Well the countdown has begun. 35 days till I depart. I was not going to start counting until 30 days, but I had to check and so I'm now starting at 35. Oh well. I have uploaded a bunch of photos to Flickr. I've been putting it off for awhile. So weed through them. I think about 10-15 back you will find the plunge pictures from last night. It was St. Paddy's day... of course we had to jump. I had the wrong settings on my camera, so they are a bit grainy, but still you get the idea. I also have loaded a few pictures of people working around station. Give you an idea of what it is we do here at Palmer. The one with the film crew from Globe Trekker, that is Jim McClintock. He is a marine chemical ecologist and invertebrate zoologist.
Well my friends, I don't have much more to say. I do hope that this email finds you all happy that you have more daylight and relishing the beginning of Spring! We are on the other end. It's getting darker and darker and snow has begun to fall daily and has begun the process of sticking. Building towards winter.
Thank you for coming along with me on this adventure. I could not do it with out you.
Oh.. I also put a very funny time laps up. Phil, our lead Science Manager, found 6 year old apple juice and had the fun task of disposing of it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
Photos
http://www.flickr.com/photos/
