[Sksouth-l] Palmer Station: Yep I'm here

[Sarah Kaye]

This won't be my funniest message ever cause I'm real
tired, but I'm very happy to be here. Palmer is way
cool. Instead of being flat like the South Pole it's
on the coast - instead of being big and butt-ugly like
McMurdo it's a very small collection of buildings, so
we're part of the scenery instead of a blot upon it.
Everything is more manageable because of the size: we
top out at 44 in the summer here, compared to 240 at
the Pole and 1100+ at McMurdo. There's also a
different culture here, more evenly balanced between
science and support staff, and a lot less political
maneuvering. I'm not saying none - everybody's human -
but less. Oh yeah, and while I've been writing this
message 3 different people have told me to stop
working. Hee hee.

The trip down was mostly smooth. We had one night with
a pretty big swell but I jammed myself in my bunk and
didn't fall out. Discovered a lot of rattly things in
the bathroom though. The boat folks were real nice
about letting us visit the bridge, which was great
when we hit the scenic area going through the Neumayer
Channel. That was something else, didn't last long
though and there we were at Palmer. Even though it's a
new station for me I knew a bunch of people on the
winter crew from other seasons at other stations,
including 3 other people from Winter 01 in McMurdo and
2 from last winter at Pole, so it was great to get
here and hug people and catch up. Sounds like they had
a really good winter and got a lot of work done. The
station is so far north (64°46°S - 64°03°W) that real
winter isolation is relatively short, but it has been
a few months anyway.

All right I'd better go make my bed. Just got to move
off the boat today. I've got a bit of a cold, not
enough to stop me from working but enough to be
annoying. Phoo!

I'll post some pictures when I have time, this place
is scenic as all-get-out. It's much more of a typical
Antarctic station than either of the other two US
stations.


Best to all,


-Sarah



		
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