Hi folks
We've been here about 2 1/2 weeks now and we're getting settled in. I've inherited a good workspace, mostly accurate inventory, well-stocked parts, and a good toolchest. All of us new folks are doing turnover with outgoing winterovers and getting ready to shoulder the load. Actually we're getting more turnover time than we were supposed to - our support vessel developed a wee leak around its main prop shaft and is in drydock up the coast in Chile instead of heading back here as scheduled. Whoops. We lose a roundtrip, several winterovers have to wait on their ride north, lots of science had to be reshuffled. Not really such a great thing, but on the plus side we have an extended quiet time now with no active science groups on station.
In the meantime everybody's training like crazy: I'm giving computer classes (fun!), the Safety guy is running all sorts of training classes, and the emergency teams are doing drills and training. I'm on the fire team and OSAR (Ocean Search and Rescue). Fire team is a drag for me because the equipment doesn't fit so well - I'm working on trading out from SCBA (bunker gear) team to First Responder (ie, grab a fire extinguisher and run). OSAR just had a lovely training today: with wet rain/snow mix and winds gusting to 65 knots we geared up and practiced toting people around on litters. That may sound silly but most incidents happen when the weather's no good. We wouldn't take boats out in these conditions but we might be, say, stuck on an island dealing with high wind and a hypothermic patient and digging things out of the emergency cache. For example. Weather sure does change quickly here.
We had a lovely Sunday last week and took a couple boats out just for fun. We saw cormorants, petrels, seals (leopard and elephant), and penguins swimming. We visited our local shipwreck, the Bahia Paraiso: it was an Argentine Navy icebreaker carrying supplies and tourists, hit a totally charted rock, sank and spilled a whole bunch of oil back in 1989. On a calm day - like Sunday - it still bubbles up oil - it was. Spooky.
Well the wind has died down to a measly 30 knots so I'm going to make the trek up from Bio (where I work) to GWR (where I live). Palmer has two main buildings, a handful of outbuildings, some storage in milvans, and that's it. Really! Makes my longest possible trip carrying equipment about 3 minutes, if I'm going from Bio to the new science building up the hill. Got to like that. The station is also nestled up against a glacier which we can ski or snowshoe up when the weather is nice, so we have more outdoors options than South Pole but fewer than McMurdo.
I've put some pictures up on my website at www.murkworks.net/~sarah. Palmer is photogenic so there will be many more.
Best to all of yous,
-Sarah
ps - write me if you just joined the list! I'm curious.