Do Not Open Until in Antarctica

Last summer I visited my family in AK. The night before I left, my niece Skye gave me present that said, "Do Not Open Until in Antarctica". So I packed the present, and it burned a hole in my bags I was so anxious to open it. Once things settled down after the hectic season opening, it was a nice sunny day- the kind of day you open special presents.

Opening Skye's present

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reading her special note

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Super shades, kleenex, and more! Exactly what I am needing on the cold sunny days.

THANKS, SKYE!

Hermit Island

Since we arrived, we worked straight through until the Gould left. That meant we worked on our one weekend day off since it left on a Monday. We kept on working through the week and decided to wait until the next weekend to take that missed day off- TWO days off in a row instead of one. All right. To make it even better, the Saturday was my golden birthday... turning 29 on the 29th. I found out that most people outside the midwest have never heard of this- anyway, the people on station who are not from the midwest.

photo by Stacie

It started off as a beautiful day and we were able to go out in the zodiac and visit Hermit Island. We took our snowshoes to walk on all the snow that's built up over the winter. It was gorgeous. We left Hermit as the weather moved in and started to snow and blow. Before heading right back to station, we stopped off the shore of Amsler Island to watch some gentoo penguins.

photo by Stacie

We made it back to station and enjoyed a drink as we prepared the birthday dinner.

Pictures

Sunset in the Strait of Magellan

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Sunset with sliver moon

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Snow in the ship's light beam

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Sea Spider in display aquarium on station

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Anenome in aquarium

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Shiny frozen flag

Palmer Arrival 2007

Via the Laurence M Gould- arriving to the southern Anvers Island vicinity where Palmer Station is situated.

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Here's a good story for you:
We arrive to Palmer a day later than expected due to a late start and ice conditions in the Gerlache Strait. In Arthur Harbor for half a day, we wait for the winds to die down so we can tie up. We finally tie up after lunch. Just as the gangway is being slung into place, the stern mooring pin breaks and flies into the water. Cancel that gangway! With the stern line finito, the strain is shifted to the bow and both pins break simultaneously, also flying into the ocean. We're down to three of six anchor points, two of which exist in a temporary pier built in the 1960s. We let it go pretty quick and motor back out to the harbor. With the fuel offload obviously cancelled, we start operations the next morning with offloading passengers and as much cargo as we can via zodiac- this was completed over three or four days while others did turnover. The boat will most likely not tie up for the next portcall either. Hopefully we get proper replacements on that cruise, and the third cruise of the season can tie up.

It was a good time.

I worked on the back deck of the Gould offloading cargo (unstuffing shipping containers and passing them to the zodiacs or making the slings for the crane).

Slinging a load onto the zodiac.

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Driving the load to station.