Floats

We’re underway! At 0700 on Christmas Eve, the N.B. Palmer set sail from the dock at Punta Arenas and sailed north. The plan was to pick up some large containers of hazardous materials, tie them on to the ship and then turn around, and sail west through the Strait. The N. B. Palmer steams ahead through the Strait of Magellan toward the Drake Passage! Now that we’re through, we’ve reached water deep enough to deploy our first float. (Yay!) The first one, RE Byrd, was deployed in the morning on December 27th at 10:00. The second, RF Scott, was deployed at 0300 on December 28th. It was a long day if you didn’t take a nap. Here, RF Scott (named by the Princeton Day School) is deployed at 0300 on December 28th. The first two floats (of 12 total) were be deployed using a new technique. It goes like this: the float is held in what looks like a cardboard box. It's purpose is to keep the float safe during deployment. The sides of the box are held together by a special kind of tape. In theory

It's really happening! We're here in Punta Arenas, Chile! It's the first stop on our journey through the Southern Ocean, and that makes it special. Let me tell you a little bit about this city. This map shows the location of Punta Arenas, right on the Strait of Magellan Steve Riser (left) and Ted Blanco (right) walk to the port. Three days go to before we weigh anchor and hoist the mizzen ! But you can look forward to my updates on this blog as we get everything ready. I'll introduce you to the two other science teams on the ship as well as the ship technicians and the rest of the crew.  Punta Arenas is one of just a few gateways to the Antarctic (the others are in South Africa and Australia/New Zealand). It's the largest city south of the 46th parallel south, and it's rich with history—especially naval. The monument pictured above stands tall in the middle of a city park. Up there is Ferdinand Magellan stepping out into the unknown with the confidence of a tr