Yum yum

Harvest time.......avocados and mangoes.......ripe in probably a week or so........:0)

At home

First things I did - 

- Had a shower (my god I needed that)

- Downloaded my email to my laptop (682 emails while I was away.....ouch!)

- Set up my new toy - my friend Liz bought me a grill for staying in Grodnick while I was away! 

- Burnt my Annies Mac and Cheese (ish......no cooking for 45 days will do that to you)

- Lay on the couch and played couch potato for an hour until I fell asleep there

- Burnt my wholewheat pancakes (ish again - I not only burnt the butter to grease the pan, but

 also managed to burn the pancakes.....)

- Had a cup of tea! 

- Opened my mail (wish I hadn't opened them so soon....)

- Put my picture from Lala on my fridge! I love the half dome stamp! 

- Paid a few bills online

- Made yogurt! 

Things I need to do today - 

- Unpack

- Take box of work things to work, look at work mail - did this, well the box anyway, and I did 'look' at the pile of mail on my desk...:0)

- get a dentist appointment (a filling cracked while I was away and i've had mad toothache for 2 weeks) - this requires finding a dentist as I haven't got one here yet - appt monday afternoon, found a dentist in Manoa of all places, so easy to get to, lets just hope he's a good one, I really hate going to the dentist! 

- Take Beach Belle for a drive and give her a clean to get the bird poo off - took her to work, pulled in at a kids carwash and they did a great job! 

- Go food shopping - Bargain of the day - 2 packs of tofu for $3 (yes, thats a bargain here okay)

- Do a laundry load

- Download photos and put some up here

- Start to reply to emails.......ug.........

And i've had a couple of people ask, but here is my heel now (here is the before). It's doing well, I managed to wear crocs for most of the cruise and only had slip on steel toe boots when I went outside (with lots of socks!). I can still feel it when I wear backed shoes, but it's doing well and healing pretty nicely. 

Oh yeah....

Upgraded for free and REAL first class, going to be a sweet ride to
Hawaii........and I get picked up on the other end so roll on
mamosas.....

On the way home

Isn't it sad that the first thing I do when I hit Dallas airport is
pull out the iPhone and check my email? Then again I guess that's why
I bought it....

So I'm just awaiting the flight to honolulu, hopefully no layovers in
Oakland this time (though that was fun last time!). The end of the
cruise was manic so sorry for no posts, but I just had a wonderful 3
days in the mountains(torres del Paine) and a great evening with stian
before I headed out (hes back down there working for the next cruise,
won't see him till July, boo). I'll post some pix from the cruise and
the hiking when I get home.

Been sad to say goodbye to the 'hole-ians' and wishing I was headed to
MA not HI. Sob.

Happy US Mother's Day

To all out there, though particularly to Stian's mom - get well soon!

Elephant Island

Sorry, it's been a while since i've blogged, in fact I can't remember the last time I did, going to be very disjointed when I finally get to see all these blogs when I get back to land. So what have we been up to. So for the last two weeks we've been geology sampling for the other group onboard. It's been okay, though terribly boring. A lot of surveying, some characters have come out that are not so pleasant to be around, and an awful lot of 'old boys school' attitudes to two young women PIs. It does amaze me, though I have to say I think I either tune it out or don't see it as often as some of my women colleagues, that when I do get it, it really does bug me. The other PI group (the geologists) are all older men (over 55 lets say, though the oldest is near 70), and have some pretty old attitudes, especially when it comes to women running the show. I just feel so leaned over and so demeaned sometimes, both of us in fact do, and since most of our science party are women, many of them have got it at somepoint too. Now this is not to say they are all bad all the time, it just comes out now and then. Laura and I have also been amazed at just how little they know of what they are doing too, yet offering advice hasn't been much of an option. Oh well. We're on our site now and getting itchy to get sampling. 1.5hrs until the trawl goes in. This shows why I haven't been blogging this trip - it's taken me around 10hrs to write this! 

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Cruise Website - 

http://censeam.niwa.co.nz/outreach/nathaniel_b._palmer

Bergy Bits

Lat - 54 53.16S

Long - 40 42.65W

Depth - 2159m

It's been a while since the update, sorry. It's not that it's been all that busy either, but i've also been working on the cruise website which takes up time - check it out if you have the time, has some great photos on it. We're in the Central South Scotia Sea at the moment still sampling for the geologists. Getting somewhat boring now actually, and we still have another week before Laura and I get to sample again. When it does finally get around to being our time again, we'll be headed to Elephant Island to sample in the shallow shelf just off the island (~200m) and then head into deeper waters going all the way to 3000m into the Drake Passage. It'll be good to see Elephant Island, we're hoping for a stop off onshore as a morale boost - but the weather has to be perfect for that to happen, so we're not letting on to anyone, keep it as a surprise if it happens, and if it doesn't at least we'll get to see the island. Elephant Island is where Shackleton landed and left one of the boats of men while he went off to get help. Would be great to see that beach. 

The scenery has actually been way better than expected - lots of icebergs everywhere of all different shapes and sizes, some covered in penguins. I've actually never seen so many icebergs, but this area of the Scotia Sea is known as Iceberg Alley. There are also lots of "bergy bits" that keep hitting the ship - these are much smaller bergs (a few meters total) so can't be classed as a full iceberg. There has also been a bunch of "slick ice" out - this is a thin layer of ice that floats in a slick and has bergy bits all in it too. These particular bits of slick ice have also had seals in too! 

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Cruise Website - 

http://censeam.niwa.co.nz/outreach/nathaniel_b._palmer