April 12- Arrival into Palmer Station

Map of vicinity of Palmer Station

April 12 -- Despite the disappointment of not finding any pteropods the previous night, arrival into Palmer Station (PS) was very exciting. LMG maneuvered into the narrow inlet towards the pier on Palmer Station.

Approach into the Palmer Station

 A large group of people were waiting onshore to secure the moorings of the LMG. We docked around 8:30 AM and the station manager came over to give us a brief orientation. We then went onshore for a tour of PS where they explained everything about the way the place works.
Having not slept for 24 hours at that point, it was tough to stay awake through some of this stuff but somehow,  I endured!

No caption needed!

Moved into into my room in the GWR building. It is a building with compact, very functional rooms with bunk beds. I got lucky and got a "Glacier View" room that looks out towards Arthur Harbor. 

View from my room. Forget the Ritz.

The GWR building has the lounge (with a great library and a AV system with hundred of DVDs) and the PS bar. The bar works on BYOB rules. You buy you owe booze and place it at the bar; you can either put it in the open bar or designate it for personal use by writing your name on the bottle. GWR also has the PS store where you can buy little items as well as liquor. The other main building is the BIO building, which has some living quarters, all the biological labs, the administrative offices and the galley. More on all of these later when I start to use them.

Having been starved for internet access on LMG, the first order of business was to get all my devices connected to the Wi-Fi -- In my defense, it was cold, dark and windy and there was not much to see outside at that time. Also, I have all these blog entries that had to upload! Anyway, the IT people at PS were super nice and efficient-- I had my laptop, IPad and phone connected to the PS Wi-Fi in no time. Spent the next couple of hours unpacking and preparing my bunk. It is an interesting challenge to put fitted sheets on upper level bunk when there is no place to stand!

Dinner time was 5 PM and the day when LMG docks in at PS is designated "pizza night". So the chef whipped up 7 different types of pizzas. After having eaten LMG food for 5 days, pizza  was just divine!

Went back to my room and met my roommate. Turned out that he is the PS administrator who gave us the station tour. So the guy really knows his way around and on top of that, he is a super nice. We chatted for a while; he has been here since Sept 2013 (!) and will be leaving with us in May. 

After that I just crashed in my bunk and went to sleep. Best night sleep ever!