15 December, 1997

Hi Everyone,

After a short nights sleep awoke to a nice day. Leo , my new roommate, from Italy and I went to breakfast and chatted a little. He is a science teck, planning to set up some equipment for a science group that flew in last night with him. The equipment is on the first ship of the season the icebreaker Nathanal Palmer. The ship is at the ice edge right now and the helos are bringing people and equipment off and on. Leo will probably leave for the ship today or tomorrow. Met an old friend who was on the icebreaker today, never thought I would see any one I would know here. Saw a fellow in the hall this morning and we both looked at each other as someone we should know when he said "Teacher from Iowa" yes then I remembered, Al was my Mate on the sailing ship when I did SEA EXPERIENCE several years ago. He now works on the Palmer as well as with SEA. On the icebreaker he is the ships science advisor. He would get me on it but doubt if we can arrange it on this short notice. My time here is getting short. I was planning to stay until Friday but may leave sooner. There are usually three planes a week from New Zealand but yesterday when the weather broke there were three flights bing,bing,bing. They want to fill them up and get them back. They were bringing a lot of mail for Christmas. They called me today and asked if I could leave on a two hr. notice. I can and I went back to the room and packed. Don't know when I will get to New Zealand. Until OUT time, I'll help Kathy and try to be useful someway. Doing fine, I'm OK. See ya