Ice stops the LMG, wind stops the ice.

All bets are off with the LMG.  We missed any chances possible to get our stuff off the boat or to get our people off the island.  I am told that this is the way that is goes here.  You never know what is going to happen and no matter how many things tell you what direction it might go, it’s not going to.  Like the huge amount of ice that we had blocking the passage of the LMG to Palmer station.  The huge storm that kept us from flying our gear and people in an out decided to make a turn and pull all of the ice out of our harbor.  That is awesome right?  Well not when the LMG has gone too far to come back.  You never know.

No LMG for us!

We had a very busy day yesterday with a new experiment (which I will explain in a comment for those of you who would like to read it).  We also had some issues with the LMG (Lawrence M. Gould).  The ship, bringing new people, much needed gear, freshies, mail, and not to forget to mention to bring home all of the people that are scheduled to get back to their lives, could not push its way through.  The LMG was short one engine and the ice is abnormally thick.  So the administration here got to work on alternatives to receive our gear and return our people.  This made for a very busy and distracting day, every hour or so an announcement would come over the “all call” saying “We have found a cruise ship in the area, we are trying to contact them and see if they can help.”   These type of updates continued all day until finally the LMG had worked its way out of the ice and was back in open water.  This opened the scheme of alternatives up much wider.  Now the plan was to ask the British base at Rothera to fly our team and good out to King Georges Island and meet up with the LMG to bring back personnel and our most important selection of our gear.  We are still waiting to find out what is going to happen…  1600 this evening.

Stupid decisions hurt!

The National Science Foundation (NSF) made a bold decision at the beginning of last week.  They decided to have a research vessel loaded with important people and goods continue on past the tip of South America to cross the Drake Passage with one malfunctioning engine.  They called ahead to us down at Palmer station to find out how the ice is.  Our report stated that the ice is quite thick and it will take both engines to get you through.  But NSF higher ups said we need to keep things on schedule and that going back to Punta Arenas is not an option, “anyway, you guys made it on one engine the last trip”.  He was right we made it on the last trip, but the ice was mostly clear from our path.  The Gould made it six miles from Palmer Station.  We could see it, I have a very faint photo.  The LMG turned around and got stuck in the ice.  Thanks for your great time saving decision NSF!  More to come…

Iron Time

Working out has been on the back burner for a long time.  We have two weeks invested in getting organized in the lab and adjusting our lifestyles to fit the preexisting crew here.  No one like it when new people come in and screw up the schedules.   So having been extremely enticed by the gym during our orientation made me crave iron time and muscular pain to a level I haven’t felt in the longest time.  This is due to the extremely long days with exhausting ends.  Being tired and feeling like there is really no reason for it SUCKS!  So since Monday I have been back to it and I am finally starting to feel that great energized extra bit of energy and that spunk that makes the day so much more fun.  All thanks to a great gym, I will get photos later, maybe a video.

Oh ya, you have got to check out my gallery for the newest in photos and VIDEO, ya video.  Check it out and tell me what you think.

Flash paper

By the way that picture below is presented in Flash paper.  It is quite cool.  Check it out, it is fun to play with!

Red Bull is my friend.

When you are in Antarctica, where is the best place to chill a beer or a soft drink? Right, outside! Well today I took my daily trip out in the freezing cold to drop my afternoon “wake up call” in the snow bank outside of the lab. Well day was kickin my ass and 230 had rolled around, and all I wanted was my RED BULL. Those of you who know me know that I love that Red Bull. So I walked outside and noticed the shiny silver cans were nowhere to be found. I am frickin’ flaming mad at this point. Anger has me wound up and I don’t even need the damn thing anymore it is just the point to figure out who was the prick that stole my red bull. I chill a little and I remember there are only 42 people here at Palmer station. Who would love to play a joke on George and Kerry? Well we decide to just play along. Kerry designs this great sign (I will put it up) that has a picture of the two red bulls sitting next to each other and a description below, height, weight, physical appearance etc. When we go up to dinner we find another sign posted over ours which is a ransom note with a picture of a masked man holding a drill to the can. We are dieing laughing by this point and the whole thing has taken a great turn. We get down to the lab after an hour of joking, laughing, and eating to find our Red Bulls returned, safe and sound. Life getting kind of boring down here sometimes… got to keep ourselves from going crazy. Thanks for that Paul!

I am in Antarctica!

Hell ya! We made it across the Drake Passage from Chile to the Antarctica Peninsula with almost no waves or surges. That is totally unheard of. Things are slowly getting moving... wait! Things are moving fuuducking fast. There is just so much to be done that the end of preparation is moving slow. The ice has come back in and we are put on hold to getting any samples, but that is good because we are not ready. So this is just a quickie to let ya'all know that I am not forgetting about this blog. But I also wanted to direct you to more in depth info on what we are doing, this can be found at www.esf.edu. This is my schools page which has been so excited about our trip down here that we were given a front page link. Just go to ESF in Antarctica and you will find lots of cool information and a blog that is not up to date but will be soon. The blog will have in depth information about what we are doing where as this one will only be blabberings about some of the quarks and fun stuff. Check out the science, it is really quite cool. Also don’t forget that I have my GALLERY up and running, check out the new photos! Party on Wayne!