21 November, 2000

Greeting Earth Creatures,

I just want you to know that you are welcome to send me e-mail and I will get back to you right away. One student wanted to know if I was staying warm. In Punta Arenas I was issued thirty-five pounds of clothing to wear. Honestly, I thought that they could have issued me 500 pounds of clothes and I still wouldn't be warm. So far I have no complaints about being cold. The trick to staying warm is to wear the proper clothing for the situation. I wear different clothes if I go out on a zodiac, where I might get wet, as opposed to the clothes I would wear if I was going to hike a glacier. The only significant problem I have encountered is the good food. The cooks that work on the Gould and at Palmer are excellent.

You also might be surprised to know that Palmer Station has Internet access. A satellite that passes over us twice a day provides our connection. So for two six-hour periods I can surf the web and catch up on my e-mail. The down side is that one of the access periods is at midnight to six in the morning. The other access period is from about noon to six in the evening. The connection is slow and spotty. Since my arrival at Palmer I have been able to login once for about 5 minutes, but the important thing is that e-mail is getting through.

All of the people I have meet at Palmer have been very nice. There are two groups of people. The science staff and the support staff. The support staff work for Raytheon Polar services. They are a highly trained group of professionals that allow the science staff to do their job. We are one big happy family.

Today our science team was again working on several different tasks. One job was to work on the electronics package we hope to test in the water tomorrow. Before it can be placed in the ocean we must ensure that it is working properly. So we have been learning how to use the equipment and collect data. Tomorrow we will run calibration tests to determine if the equipment is functioning properly. Time is also critical. We will only be here for a limited number of days. Some days we will not be able to collect data because of the weather. So we work long hours.

c-ya tomorrow,

-- Bill

The lab where we do most of our work.

The electronics package that will tell us secrets from the ocean.