COSEE NOW

The 2nd of January I stepped onto the RV Lawrence M Gould for the Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) cruise.  It was hard to leave Palmer Station behind but the cruise promised further adventure down the […]

In early November we had a stretch of a week or so where the winds were gusting at least 50 knots.  Needless to say, we were not able to get out and sample that week.  At the beginning of all the bad weather, the L […]

Halloween was Kim Bernard’s birthday, and luckily the weather was nice enough that night to go recreational boating.  Palmer Station is situated in the middle of about a dozen islands, a few of which can be used for recreational use.  Most of the islands we are not allowed to visit because of the nesting animals [...]

The weather at Palmer Station has been against us this month.  In all of October we were only able to get out on the water to sample twice.  Between the sea ice and the high winds, we haven’t been able to leave station.  If the wind is above 20 knots we are not allowed to take [...]

We’ve made it to Palmer Station, and while it is a bit icer and colder than last year most things are the same.  We’re set up in lab ten again, right next to the main entrace for easy access to the zodiacs.  It is also the biggest lab, so we have plenty of room to work [...]

Yet again we’ve come back to Punta Arenas to rub the toe of the famous statue resting in the square for safe travels across the Drake, to head back to our summer home in Antarctica.   Currently it is spring here is Punta Arenas, Chile.  The town is spotted with puddles from days of rain, [...]

The sunny clear days of December and January are rare now at Palmer.  We’ve had several bad weather days so far in February and March which hinder our ability to go out and collect water samples.  With high winds, rain, and occasionally snow, we’ve been stuck indoors.  One night the winds even gusted up to [...]

(This post is by Travis, but since they have limited internet on the boat I’m posting it for him) So it’s been a while since I’ve gotten the chance to write. I know Kaycee has updated everyone to a lot of what’s been going on at Palmer the last few weeks. Here’s an update from those of [...]

These last few days have been hectic with several successes an one loss.  We’ll get the bad news over with then move onto the good.  Last night in an amazing feat, Matt and I finished preparing RU-21 to be deployed.  Dave Aragon, the glider technician at Rutgers, figured out our software glitch with help from Peter [...]

Sorry for the delay, we’ve been busy getting ready for the Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) cruise on the Laurence M. Gould (LMG) for the month of January down the Antarctic Peninsula.  Travis and Garz left on the 7th to join Grace Saba and Oscar Schofield on the LMG.  We had to pack up a lot [...]

Happy Thanksgiving to all. Here at Palmer we have the privilege of having visitors in addition to the visits from the Laurence M. Gould.  There are about 8,000 tourist who visit the West Antarctic Peninsula, and out of those, 1,500 visit Palmer Station during the summer season.  Last week we were visited by the Lautoro, a [...]

Our sampling efforts started off with a bang.  Travis described the storm we had to brave to get home during boating 2, but the weather still threatens our science.  We’ve only had a few opportunities to go out this October thus far, which seems to be a reoccurring theme over the last couple of years.  [...]

On the 6th of October we began our journey from Punta Arenas down to the Antarctic, braving harsh winds and fearsome seas in the name of science! The Drake Passage is notorious for rough seas, and since the crossings for the last two seasons have been calm, we knew our luck would run out eventually.  With [...]