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.