January 27, 2005

Rothera was a blast. We had a soccer game on the airstrip to start off with
but lost to the Brits 2-0 despite our two Chilean deckhand ringers. I guess
you could have seen that one coming. But then they set up the band in the
sled shop and we started the Party. The Rothera band is really good, and
they played lots of good stuff like Cake and Pixies and White Stripes and
Bloodhound Gang and even Iggy Pop. I even got some video but I'll have to
send you that later. We went through many cases of fine British beer, but
they had already drunk all the Guinness on station. The dancing got more
and more ridiculous as the night went on until we had people dancing on
workbenches and literally swinging from the rafters. Fortunately they had
hidden all the saws and hammers in the workshop before the festivities
started. Very wise in the ways of partying these Brits.

The day before we stopped at Avian Island to drop off a field camp.
Incredible weather this trip.We had flat calm water, sunshine and no wind
at all. Perfect Zodiac weather. We even had an Adelie penguin jump in the
zodiac and check it out.

The sunset that night was amazing too. You can see the difference in
surface tension between seawater and the melting freshwater icebergs like
rivers in the ocean.

Cheers,
Andy

January 16, 2005

We had a few glorious days. Searing sunshine (and no ozone layer) gave us
all good burned faces. We had an ice station complete with divers, seals,
and ice coring. Everyone got a chance to go out on the ice and have some
fun. Lots of science, but mostly a boondoggle. Then yesterday we got to
recover and re-deploy the mooring. First you go to where we sank the thing
last year, then fire these acoustic releases that make the mooring let go
of it's anchor, then you wait around in a panic to see if it surfaces. Then
you get to snag it with a grappling hook, tie it to a winch and drag it on
board. It took us maybe 1 hour to recover it, then 4 hours to dump the
data, replace batteries and rope, and then only 10 minutes to kick it over
the side again. Good sun and no waves yesterday either.

Now we're heading down south of the Arctic Circle to Margarite Bay to do
more stations of the coast. Should be routine, but we get to put a shore
camp in place on the 20th, and hopefully get to the British base Rothera on
the 22nd. Assuming ice and winds cooperate. Ahhh Rothera. Guinness and Harp
and other good beers, plus a fine feed, dancing, and other merriments.

Cheers,
Andy

January 2, 2005

For once they bumped me up to business class for the flight down. Can you
believe it? Instead of packets of stale pretzels we got warm almonds served
in fine china. Sweet. Plus being able to sleep in a nominally horizontal
position improved my disposition enormously.

Christmas in PA was pretty good. My friend Fred prepared us a fine dinner
of Phad Thai, ginger carrot soup, and an excellent salad with walnut and
pear garnishes. Amazing what you can do in a town on the southern tip of
South America.

The rest of the port call was one big repair job after another. We put
divers in the water to fix a leaking sonar window, pulled the huge boom out
of the baltic room to fix a leaking hydraulic seal, and replaced the
fairlead head on the knuckle crane. This required me to miss one night of
cervesas in town, for which I plan to charge them double.

The trip south across the Drake is just ridiculously nice. Sunny, warm,
calm. It's like we're in the wrong ocean. ETA at Palmer Station is 2000
hours tomorrow night. Just as I planned, we arrive to late to swing cargo
but early enough to tie up and go to the bar.

Cheers,
Andy