View from my room at the Dreams Hotel in Punta Arenas, Chile. Spent a lovely week there hanging out with my boss Mark Furnish after work (I've worked for him on and off since 2002), facilitating the move of our hazardous waste shipping containers from Mardones Pier onto the ship. Incredible steak dinner Il Brocolino, lots of delicious prosciutto & arugula pizza at the new pizza place, drinks at the Shackleton Bar and the best New Years possible with the Filipino families and Captain Sebastien. Happy as always to return to Southern Chile.
The sailboat Europa at sunset. It was nothing but ocean and some icebergs for most of the 21 days to McMurdo Station, but this was a magical sight.
Deploying ARGOS floats for Glenn Pezzolli at the Scripss Institute of Oceanography with Krista and our scientist on board, Avery Snyder from UW Applied Physics Laboratory. These machines float at neutral buoyancy and transmit location, temperature and depth data for 10 years!!! They are all over the world in every ocean and that's how we monitor the health of our oceans. Krista and I were roomates at McMurdo and a night in New Zealand, and the only ladies on the ship.
Incredible icebergs one we were far enough south to see them. Each one more shapely and bigger than the last, and isn't it cool to think that only 10% of each is above water.
The first time you cross the Antarctic Circle is a celebration in costume with performances and visit by King Neptune and his people. It was awesome!
Helping Avery test his EM-Apex floats (they are incredible! They travel to the bottom of the ocean and up to the surface everyday and transmit temperature, salinity and location data back to remote computers for a whole year until we pick them back up again).
Craft time! I made a couple copper wire hats for my girlfriends at McMurdo from leftover science parts. We send XBT's (bathythermographs) into the ocean hooked to these wires through which the data travels back to our computers. Because the ocean isn't always deep there is always leftover wire, and now hats for friends instead of trash. Although I did take back the leftover copper to McMurdo to recycle.
The NBP (Nathaniel Brown Palmer) next to the pier at McMurdo. It was a wonderful cruise and amazing to finally get to work on her. Had a blast, lots of jokes at lunch, movies with friends after work and cool science projects.
The NBP leaving McMurdo headed to Hobart, Australia for two months.
This year's cargo vessel with the Transantarctic Mountains as a backdrop.
The cargo ship with this year's supplies (450 20 foot shipping containers, went back with the same 450 containers filled with recyclables, resale items and 70 containers of hazardous waste from Palmer and McMurdo Station to be treated at facilities in the USA)
The main reason I was on the ship as a Hazardous Waste Technician was to accompany 10 shipping containers and several drums across the ocean to McMurdo Station from Chile, and be the legal representative as well as the Spill Response Lead in case of incident. (This project saved the program $150,000). We got to have a hazmat drill with the Captain's crew of men and I got to advise on procedures, as well as package 5-55 gallon drums full of the ships hazardous chemicals from previous scientific cruises.
More gorgeous icebergs on the way.
The last few miles to McMurdo Station were in this channel that the US Coast Guard Cutter (Icebreaker) cut for us and the cargo ship and fuel tanker. You can see the Cutter in this picture up ahead. Below is: Craft project: We painted these styrofoam coffee cups and sent them down
with the water sampling machine to 4,000 meters (13,200 feet) and the
pressure from the depth compressed the air bubbles out of the cups to
shrink them to shot glass sized containers. Pretty fun!
It was an amazing journey and I got to fly to New Zealand after a wonderful week catching up with my girlfriends on an LC-130 (9 hours) to Christchurch. We even had a get together with McMurdo friends and everyone on the ship at Hut 10, as well as several morning coffees with the girls and dinners.
I took Krista to some of my favorite NZ spots, including the Boat Shed Cafe next to the Avon river where they punt (like in Venice) and have exceptional cappuccinos.
Springtime in the Botanic Gardens in Christchurch. I took Krista there, then Ken my boss on the ship, then went my last day by myself and feel exceptionally lucky to have seen the spring blooms and roses.
Christchurch Botanic Gardens (I also got to see the Wellington Botanic Gardens with my niece and the San Francisco Botanic Gardens with Dave). Below is the tourist area behind the Cathedral in downtown, now open again after the earthquakes.
Hanna & Tiora, now 4 & 8. So proud, Tiora has read almost 900 books as verified by their local library.
We went to a Hungarian friend's lovely 40th birthday party. So great to see family again, lucky to get to spend time together. Thanks guys! Love you. (They are now living in Oslo, Norway).
My brother's house and the neighbor's tree in full bloom!
Dora & I did our traditional girl's day out at a nice restaurant downtown and a few days later a good movie. I spoke again at Dora's work, the Campbell Institute about Antarctica and had lots of pictures.
Our annual girls day with Tiora was a metro into the city, pink sushi, cable car up to the Botanic Gardens and a lovely walk.
Blossoms in the Wellington Botanic Gardens.
An awesome bush walk in Otari-Wilton before my flight that Tibor & Dora took me to. Incredible native plants and birdsong. Tibor and I got to spend some time together in downtown Wellington out for sushi and a beer with his boss.
Flowers in downtown Christchurch. I can't believe how many places I've gotten to see so far this year, lucky girl. It was a bit busy in Christchurch doing my medical and dental tests for my job as well showing friends around the city. Got to see Tibor and Dora for a week up in Wellington and had a wonderful visit and helped them a bit with their packing as well as enjoyed the flowers and food. And had a great time on the NBP sailing across the Southern Ocean to McMurdo Station. I lucked out and got bumped from several flights out of McMurdo, so I had more time to catch up with more friends. Even got to sift through my four boxes in storage there and mail one home and gift the rest. It's great to just be a tourist there and see all the familiar faces and places. More pictures coming soon of Washington DC and San Francisco with Dave. Love you, thanks for reading!
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