December 1, 1999

Another rotation of coring. I begged off my watch for a spell to catch up on the website and to check in with Steve regarding his progess on our soundscape project at Palmer Station. He has e-mail and I got this from him...

Hey Doug,

Things are everything they were advertised to be here. The people are great, the food is wonderful and the rooms are small and crowded. It is fine but enjoy the solo stateroom while you can. I'll go stake out some tents sites as soon as I'm able.

The Sat phone appears to have survived the crossing unscathed. I'll get out today and have a test. The comms tech seemed pretty keen on trying to use his antenna (they only have one) but I'll try the portable as well. The locals have asked me out on a hike to the Old Palmer Station site with them so I'll try that to get the lay of the land.

The web access here seems pretty good with about ten hours a day of coverage and pretty good speed (at least on the early morning pass when nobody else is up using the system).

Hope things are going well for you and the weather is reasonable. It is extremely variable here with periodic passing squalls. I definitely have a good case of the "dock rock" going but my inner ear is appreciating being on solid ground.

Steve

Meanwhile, the labs were busy with activity...

Dennis Guffy, from Texas A and M, is on board as a science technician. He is at his station running analyses and processing the results of a Conductivity, Temperature and Depth (CTD) probe.

Amy Baco-Taylor, from the University of Hawaii, dissects a sea cucumber, emptying its stomach contents to learn more about how the animal cycles what nutrients from the seafloor.