Okay - so for those of you who are wondering - I am still alive. Kind of :) Since leaving the house, things have been totally crazy - I left home on Dec. 26th for Punta Arenas, Chile, as usual, but had a LOT of fun in between airports - my flight out of Indianapolis was delayed to Dallas/Ft. Worth, TX, which meant that I missed my flight to Santiago, which entailed me staying overnight in a hotel in Dallas, TX. There was an interesting night :) And by interesting, I mean absolutely not worth mentioning :) Anyhow, I eventually made it down to the ship on the 28th of Dec, which was really great considering we were sailing on the 30th! I basically worked 16 hour days for the 2 days remaining in port trying to get everything done that I needed to, and shortly thereafter went into a "special" shift - I slept 3 hours, then worked for 12, repeat process for 3 days. Eventually, I crashed and slept pretty hard :) There was just a lot of equipment coming on board and a lot of set up and a whole brand new group of scientists - most of whom had not been down to the Antarctic before, and for those that had, they hadn't been down for over 20 years! At this point, 12 days into the cruise, everything is finally set up and working properly :)
So what's happened since we left port? Well, 4 days after leaving PA on the 30th of Dec, we arrived at Palmer Station - as usual. We spent 2 nights there and had a blast, drinking at their bar and having a good time. I played life guard this year - becoming one of the EMT's on board makes me feel a bit more responsible, so I sat there and watched the "new" folk go running out and jumping into the ocean, then come dashing back into the hot tub at Palmer. It was fun when I did that last year, but seeing it second hand makes you appreciate warm clothes a lot more.... and being dry.
This cruise is again, LTER - Long Term Ecological Research project - the same cruise that I did last year, which is kind of cool, though most of the people are new. We'll be in the same area as last year and doing the same science, which is a big deal for them - a lot of CTD's, retrieving the moorings that we deployed last year (round 500 meters of line with all sorts of instruments attached to them - mostly for recording temperature and conductivity - the salt content of the ocean), downloading the data, refurbishing all the instruments and re-deploying the moorings, a lot of net tows to catch krill, and there is a birder aspect of this cruise as well (3 people getting dropped off at Avian Island - a protected penguin rookery - that sounds like the intro to some reality TV show... 3 People getting dropped off to collect penguin poop - which one will win?). All in all, a very full cruise. And one that has been keeping me incredibly crazily busy as of late; hence the huge delay in me writing my "normal" emails to all.
What have we done up to this point? Well, we've done a lot of CTD's as usual, recovered one mooring and refurbished it and redeployed it, we've caught a lot of krill and assorted biological goodies, deployed all sorts of other equipment over the back and have lots of other stuff planned. They've added a good bit of equipment this year, so we have some gliders which are really cool - when they're deployed, they are pretty autonomous - we simply program them (by we, I mean the folks from Rutgers), and a bunch of other fancy gadgets - I'll get some more info on that stuff in a later email.
The picture is of me...in a box, obviously :) Like all good things, this one didn't last, as my coworkers decided that it was a lot more fun to tip said box over with me in it, then roll over me. The box didn't make it... I did (Note the Ravens hat though).
Okay - this is a quick and dirty email, but one that I thought should be sent so everyone did believe that I was still alive and kind of well :) Oh, by the by - temperature here today is 4.8° C outside - nice and balmy actually - it's approx. 45-50° F :) Actually quite warm.
Enjoy!
VS
So what's happened since we left port? Well, 4 days after leaving PA on the 30th of Dec, we arrived at Palmer Station - as usual. We spent 2 nights there and had a blast, drinking at their bar and having a good time. I played life guard this year - becoming one of the EMT's on board makes me feel a bit more responsible, so I sat there and watched the "new" folk go running out and jumping into the ocean, then come dashing back into the hot tub at Palmer. It was fun when I did that last year, but seeing it second hand makes you appreciate warm clothes a lot more.... and being dry.
This cruise is again, LTER - Long Term Ecological Research project - the same cruise that I did last year, which is kind of cool, though most of the people are new. We'll be in the same area as last year and doing the same science, which is a big deal for them - a lot of CTD's, retrieving the moorings that we deployed last year (round 500 meters of line with all sorts of instruments attached to them - mostly for recording temperature and conductivity - the salt content of the ocean), downloading the data, refurbishing all the instruments and re-deploying the moorings, a lot of net tows to catch krill, and there is a birder aspect of this cruise as well (3 people getting dropped off at Avian Island - a protected penguin rookery - that sounds like the intro to some reality TV show... 3 People getting dropped off to collect penguin poop - which one will win?). All in all, a very full cruise. And one that has been keeping me incredibly crazily busy as of late; hence the huge delay in me writing my "normal" emails to all.
What have we done up to this point? Well, we've done a lot of CTD's as usual, recovered one mooring and refurbished it and redeployed it, we've caught a lot of krill and assorted biological goodies, deployed all sorts of other equipment over the back and have lots of other stuff planned. They've added a good bit of equipment this year, so we have some gliders which are really cool - when they're deployed, they are pretty autonomous - we simply program them (by we, I mean the folks from Rutgers), and a bunch of other fancy gadgets - I'll get some more info on that stuff in a later email.
The picture is of me...in a box, obviously :) Like all good things, this one didn't last, as my coworkers decided that it was a lot more fun to tip said box over with me in it, then roll over me. The box didn't make it... I did (Note the Ravens hat though).
Okay - this is a quick and dirty email, but one that I thought should be sent so everyone did believe that I was still alive and kind of well :) Oh, by the by - temperature here today is 4.8° C outside - nice and balmy actually - it's approx. 45-50° F :) Actually quite warm.
Enjoy!
VS
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