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