This is Antarctica!

I made it! It was a long cruise from Punta Arenas, but lucky for us the weather and the sea cooperated. We only hit a few bumps on our second day at sea and the rocking wasn't nearly as bad as it often can be. It was still difficult to walk at times and even simply carrying a cup of coffee wasn't easy, but overall we were very fortunate. I'll be posting some photos of the voyage as soon as I have more time, but besides the ship itself we mostly saw just open water. We did have a few dolphins swimming along side the ship one day which was pretty cool.



Land ho!

We arrived at Palmer Station around 8AM April 25th. Since then there's barely been enough time to look around. Between unloading the ship and orientation the day flew by. I did manage to get out on the glacier for an hour with a few others to get a look around. This place is magnificent! Absolutely beautiful in every direction. My photos don't do it justice, but with a little more time I might do better. While I was out on the ice I also got a chance to preview our skiing territory. Very skiable, though right now the snow is shallow enough that you'd be scraping the ice pretty bad on your turns. To my surprise and great satisfaction there are two snowboards in addition to the tele and XC skis I had already heard about. Someone's going to be shredding Antarctica... :)



Home sweet home. Despite what you might think, Palmer is actually quite a comfortable place. We have a nice lounge with a full bar, dartboard, and regulation size pool table. There's an immense video library as well as a Wii. Best of all, you're surrounded by some wonderful people. There was a big to-do in the lounge last night with everyone from the station and the ship. If it was any kind of indicator I expect to have a lot of fun during my stay here.



That's all for now. Best wishes to all of you up North. I should be able to post a lot more now that I'm starting to get settled. The adventure is well on it's way and every day brings new wonders.

Ship Ahoy!

Well, we've all got our emergency cold weather (ECW) gear. Guess that means we're ready.



Here's the Lawrence M. Gould (LMG) - our vessel. We'll be sleeping on board tonight and then we're off at 10AM tomorrow. Goodbye green grass!

Just Checking In

Made it to Punta Arenas in one piece! Sorry no pictures, but if you ask me it looks just like a city. We board the vessel tonight and debark for the ice tomorrow morning. There's a group of whale taggers coming along that have a pretty sweet job. They'll be out hunting humpbacks while I'm back in the station patching computers. Oh well, you can't have everything. I've met a lot of the crew so far and everyone down here is really cool. This is going to be fun. :)

What am I doing?

Palmer Station

I suppose the best way to start this blog is from the beginning. Since some of you may not know my background, allow me to fill you in. For the last 10 years I've been a System Administrator working indirectly for the National Science Foundation (NSF) one way or the other. Originally I was with a group called CIRES under the University of Colorado, but the last 5 years I've worked for a company called UNAVCO Inc. UNAVCO, in a nutshell, is a company that supports science through the installation of remote instruments all over the world - including Antarctica. For many years they've been sending engineers to all of the Antarctic stations and also many other interesting places on the continent and the rest of the world. I've been in the datacenter in Boulder pulling cables and flipping switches.

So after all these years of watching these guys give their Antarctic slideshows and talk with all their Antarctic friends, it slowly became time for me to make my move. I worked out an arrangement with UNAVCO to go down for a summer season in October '09. This meant submitting an application March 1st, '09 and I counted the days until then very closely. Come March, I submitted my application and started pulling strings hoping to find out about my deployment in the fall. Come April, here I am going down to Palmer Station for a winter season in 3 hours.

This time I'll be working for Raytheon Polar Services, contracted under the NSF, as the Network Engineer for Palmer Station. More or less, this is the same sort of work I've done at CIRES and UNAVCO, but for much of my time down on the ice I'll be the only point of contact for the other staff. The Antarctic program also has a slightly larger and more complex configuration than my prior employers. I feel ready though, and I'm going to take good care of them down there.

While I'm there I'll be with about 45 people at first (the maximum capacity of the station) and then in June the number will dwindle to just 18 of us once the winter really sets in and the last vessel departs. After that we'll be camping out with no more visits from the mainland until September.

Well, that was fast. Guess I'm going to Antarctica. Careful what you wish for!

This is not Antarctica

Hi all, Palmer Station, Antarctica looks nothing like this. It does not resemble Arches National Park in any way at all. Just thought you should all know that.

For more photos that aren't of Antarctica, take a look at :
http://photos.jeff.braucher.net/20090321Arches