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.