Last evening

The skies were gorgeous on my last evening at Palmer. I was feeling pretty nostalgic for the place I was still in! I got to hang out in the hot tub with a nice group of people as the sun set, and as darkness set in, they each left until I got to be out there alone, enjoying the beautiful night and feeling so grateful for this experience here.

Well, okay! I think that's it for my summer-at-Palmer pictures. Not sure where I'll be when this post goes live...I could be all the way home, possibly. Or depending on how the world is doing, I could still be a ways away. Either way, next time I have a chance to post about the trip home I will. In the meantime, stay well everyone!

Last boat ride of the season

My last Zodiac adventure before leaving Palmer was on a group trip to take the Research Associate to service a water station in the Gosler Islands, which were so fun to explore a little...

...and then a visit to Dream Island to place some winter time emergency survival caches. Plus using that as an excuse to take the opportunity to explore a bit around this island that was new to me but definitely lived up to its name.

Check out how HUGE this elephant seal is in relation to the three fur seals behind him!!

And seeing anything green is such a joy and a treat. Sometimes we rub our faces in it.

Oh, Antarctica.

It was a good last outing, over too soon.

But there was already packing to get back to....

Torgie post-penguins

If all has gone according to plan so far (I'm typing this nearly a week in advance), today the ship I rode north from Palmer (the NBP) will be reaching Punta Arenas, Chile. As I'm typing this, the world is changing so fast with the Coronavirus crisis that no one knows for sure what will happen then with the 35 or so of us from the NBP who need to head home to the States. But the senior leadership of USAP and NSF are all working on it and will get us home somehow, sometime. And when they do, I'll be able to tell you all about how it happened. Once I have good internet access again, of course.

To continue to keep you entertained in the meantime, some more leftover pictures from Palmer. 

One day on my last week there, I got to go back out to Torgersen Island (the one that had the huge Adelie penguin colony on it all summer until their chicks fledged and they all moved their super-stinky party elsewhere) to help one of our IT guys take down the penguin cam that is set up there each summer for us and the outside world to keep an eye on the progress of the Adelie eggs and then chicks as they grow.

It was a great excuse to get out on the water (I drove the boat! I've gotten to do boat operator training, finally, this summer...and operating a boat has been a totally new experience for me!) and get some exercise trying desperately not to trip or slip on loose rock while carrying expensive camera equipment and solar panels back to the Zodiac.

And then we had a half-hour left before lunch so we did a little island exploring while we were at it. The gorgeousness just never ends!

The mighty, mighty fur seal.

Remains of an Adelie that didn't make it.

My friend C gets swallowed by a bergy-bit.

Friend K looks like a he belongs in a travel catalog for trips to Antarctica!

Haz vans...poof!

Those of you have been following along for my summer of things going awry down here know at least part of the story of the 10 vans of hazardous waste that were supposed to have gone to Chile for winter storage (and then eventual further travel for disposal next summer) in early December. As a reminder: half of them ended up having to stay down here at Palmer pretty much all summer, clogging up every available space, including three of the four pier spots. 

When the boat finally came to take them away a couple weeks ago, there was much rejoicing by me. Here's what the pier looked like as we started trying to get them all aboard:

And then here's the after picture with them safely tucked onto the LMG.

And then a truly shocking sight for me: the totally empty pier after the boat left. This is a view I just saw for the first time all summer, and it only lasted for less than 24 hours before we started having to bring a couple of other containers that were stuck up the road all summer down to the pier to pack them. But it was a sweet, sweet (if forlorn) sight!

And more sunsets

The end of the summer at Palmer meant the return of more normal day/night hours (which quickly began transitioning toward more night than day once we passed the Equinox on March 20), which meant that I was actually awake for sunrises and sunsets. Which are my FAVORITE. Here are a few of my favorite low-light pictures from the past few weeks.

Dock seals

One day a couple weeks ago when we were on the pier to backload some cargo into a container that was going to be leaving, we ended up taking a crabeater seal-watching break. These two were frolicking on the boat ramp for more than 20 minutes, giving everyone on station time to come outside and watch them play. Gorgeous afternoon, beautiful experience. So lucky.

Dead Seal Island

One of the last new island visits I got to make before leaving station was a few weeks ago when a bunch of us piled into a zodiac on a Sunday afternoon to go on a rescue mission to try to find a pair of gloves that one of us lost on Dead Seal Island on a previous visit. Any excuse to go explore a new chunk of rock!!!

I liked the somewhat dramatic cliff where we were dropped off.

And while happily we didn't see any dead seals on Dead Seal Island, there were plenty of live ones to tip-toe around.

Plus this interesting-looking bergy-bit just off-shore.

Gentoo penguin, glacier...what more could you ask for on a Sunday afternoon in Antarctica?

I'm not sure who was more surprised when I stumbled upon this guy, him or me...

Art show

Expecting to have really poor internet on the NBP starting today, I've pre-set posts to go live each day I'll be on the boat and for a few days after. Then by the time these run out, I'll hopefully be able to start sending along news and pictures of whatever did end up happening on the journey home.

So here's today's flashback to a couple weeks ago, when a station member threw her annual "Open that Bottle" party, where everyone shares any nice wine that's left on station and there's an art show. People's work was soooo impressive and varied, and the chefs did an amazing appetizer spread (their art!). Also, I think I've mentioned before, the carpentry shop is my favorite room on station in terms of ambiance, so it was a perfect setting for an art show.

I LOVE this display. The woman who threw the event, and who also holds "Art in the Bar" watercolor sessions on Sunday mornings brought in a photo she'd taken of the LMG sitting behind a big berg. Her rendition of the photo is on the top, and then the versions created by her students one particular Sunday--four of the young grantees on station this summer--are below. I just love how different yet beautiful each is.

Safe haven

So many Palmer pictures still to share, and yet leaving...tomorrow! Ah! This place has been such a beautiful, peaceful safe haven as the world has gone into shut-down mode. I guess I will be joining that craziness soon enough but will never stop appreciating the gorgeousness of here.

Sailing off into...

As far as I know Coronavirus itself hasn't yet reached Antarctica...but it sure is wreaking havoc here. This week were supposed to be wrapping up all our projects and preparing for the arrival of the winter crew on the 29th, do a week of turn-over, and then hop aboard the LMG. (Pictured below sailing away into this GORGEOUS sunset less than a week ago to head back to Chile with a chunk of our summer population.) 

But due to the increasing complications of international--or any--travel, specifically Chile closing its borders right about the time this boat was sailing away, the winter crew was unable to come south. So decisions were made at high levels in the ASC program and the NSF that the program's other research vessel, the NBP, would swing through here next week on its own way north to pick up the remaining scientists on station and take them, with the other scientists it already has on board, and get them home any way possible, leaving the support staff here until things calm down and the winter-overs are able to make it south. It was becoming clear that the soonest I would then get home would be late May or early June. So, thanks to my co-worker C's willingness to stay on and cover the last batch of cargo that will be coming in to supply the station...hopefully...at some point...I decided to get out while the getting is good, preferring to ride out the Coronavirus storm with my family than isolated in Antarctica. 

So if things go according to plan, I'll be hopping on the NBP on Tuesday for the 3-4 day trip north to Chile. What happens at that point is still to be determined, so I'll have to send another update when the time comes...and I also have a whole bunch more Palmer pictures to post that I was planning to put up during my last couple weeks here that will now have to be after the fact. So, stay tuned, and we'll see how this all goes!

Under the sea

A few weeks ago there was an open house in the science labs and we got to see a bunch of fun critters that the diving team has collected this season when they were trying to get the much smaller organisms they are actually studying. They've brought in sea worms...

...Anenomes...

...and my personal favorite: sea stars!:

I've never gotten to see how they move before--totally amazing!

Before and after

My logistics coworker, C, loves testing boundaries and will sometimes set out on a forklift trip that a load that looks like this and (to me) is clearly going to end in a particular way:

This time the whole thing was so absurd to me I just HAD to make her pause so I could take a picture of the precarious TP tower. So then it was even funnier when, less than ten seconds later, this inevitably happened.

Just a day in the cargo life!

A Viral Note

Hi friends and family and random blog stalkers,

Just a note to say I hope you're all well and enduring the Coronavirus quarantine okay. We've been pretty much quarantined by nature here for quite awhile and are in a very safe place, from the virus perspective. It's almost time for us summer crew to clear out and the winter crew to take over at Palmer, so obviously the same upheaval the whole world is dealing with right now is going to apply in Antarctica, too, as the program leadership tries to figure out how to make this seasonal crew transition in a healthy way and considering all of the flight suspensions and border closings. No way to know anything for sure here any more than anyone really knows anything that's going to happen in the next hours, days, and weeks up north. But in the meantime I'm well and cozied in at "home" down here and hope you are too.

L.

Aloha, LMG

Today the LMG is coming back from its science foray, and this weekend we're finally going to load it full of all of the hazardous waste containers we've been stuck with all summer and say sayonara to those beasts. Here's a photo of the LMG that I took when it was in port a couple weeks ago. Well, I guess it's more a picture of the sky. But still. This is the view from the dining area at Palmer. Not. Too. Shabby.

Visitors, like krill

We're still getting penguin and seal visitors (and the fur seals are trying to make the whole area look like Sea World), though it is slowing down a little as the summer draws to a close. This guy is a crabeater seal.

But there was a new experience last week when a huge amount of krill washed up onto the rocks and met their end on the rocks alongside station. Nature is cruel--this was definitely the end for these guys--but also it was kind of beautiful. (It's fuzzy but there's even a fur seal on the rock in the distance in the middle of the picture.)

These big fat krill are the reason whales come all the way down here and manage to fatten up over the Antarctic summer after they calve further north. Humpbacks, especially, are thriving at this part of the peninsula in recent years.

Sunsets

We are getting closer to the equinox and our long, long, long days of summer are shortening VERY quickly. It's still kind of surprising to me when it gets dark out! But hopefully that will mean lots more beautiful skies during my last month on station....

Lipps Island

One month from today, I (and most of the other summer support crew members) will be on the LMG crossing the Drake on our way back to Chile. The imperative to soak up more and more of this Palmer gorgeousness feels stronger than ever!

Thus, another new island visit on a recent Sunday afternoon: Lipps! It's kind of amazing how all the islands just look like low, rocky outcrops from a distance. But once you land and start walking around, they all have their own character. Lipps is a lot of varied rock all smashed together, lots of scrambling over boulders, deep channels where the water rushes through, and gorgeous vistas.

Perspective lent by J.M., who hates to have his picture taken, but who kept walking into perfect places to show the grand scale of the landscape. Thanks--and sorry--J.M.

Out on a boat

On a GLORIOUS evening (caught in a sandwich of soggy weather--summer is definitely on the way and we started seeing some wet snow again by mid-February) a couple weeks ago, I got to go out for a couple of hours of boating after dinner.

This leopard seal was hanging out on a bergy bit right off shore from station. Hello, fearsome buddy!

Oh, what a night.

I think the bergs are just as mesmerizing as the wildlife and general scenery around here, honestly.

A group that studies whales was also enjoying the clear evening, on the lookout for humpbacks, with Mount William standing proud in the background.

I got off the boat just for about 20 minutes for a quick walk on Jacobs Island, and I really wish I'd had longer and my phone hadn't died as I was filming the video below. This little lagoon had SO MANY FUR SEALS in and around it, I could barely move without one or more of them starting to bark at me like mad. It was magical.