Because things so frequently don't go according to plan.
Here is the ship that we will be traveling on. The Laurence M. Gould.
Our sailing date has been postponed. There were still a lot of supplies to be loaded on the ship to take to Palmer Station. It’s an impressive and busy sight watching the ship load up – over 20,000 lbs. of stuff! This will be the last ship down to the station until September. The crew worked like crazy loading everything from concrete slabs to “freshies” on board the ship. “Freshies” are fresh vegetables and fruits, a treasured commodity down in Antarctica. Let’s face it - there are no farms, no gardens, no supermarkets down there.
We went through the fruit and vegetable boxes before loading them up. Looking for the bad apples...or onions, bananas, garlic, carrots, potatoes...
Check out the small control box on the Marine Tech. He's loading on supplies and controlling the crane from that little thing.
The lower deck was full by the time we left. This boat can carry some serious cargo.
Everything comes in shipments and there is no choice but to make due. Just between you and me, I am relishing the thought going to a place for a few weeks with no plants. Any fellow allergy sufferers in Chicago this Spring know what I’m mean. To make use of our newly found down time, Maddy Willis volunteered to help reassemble the Fish Spy as we make plans to launch it.
Step 1: Take the multitude pieces out of the travel case, i.e. mailing tube reinforced with duct tape.
Piece by piece we put the Fish Spy back into working order.
Maddy helped me put the Fish Spy together. It's trickier than you might think.
Maddy will be working with a group studying microbes in the Southern Ocean – more on this later. My team back home will be glad to know that the Fish Spy and all of her pieces and parts made the trip successfully. Liliana was worried I might forget. Me forget??? Actually, she was the only one that voiced this concern out loud.