On the way home.....

Last few days have been busy, but fun. The day after the Ross Island pickup we went to Cockburn Island, just a few hours away from James Ross, for the paleontologists to look for fossils (the paleontologists from Livingston who were blown out by weather - so it was a chance for them to salvage something from the field season). I was one of a lucky few to be invited along to help search, so got to go on a short 4hr hike and even find a fossil coral, which was really neat. They unfortunately didn't find the mammals they were hoping for, but we did find lots of fossil shells.

Then yesterday we were involved in a Medivac from the other boat, the Nathaniel B. Palmer. They had a sick person onboard who needed picking up for us to take back across the Drake. They were pulled into King George Island where there is an emergency hospital, where he wasassessed as not critical enough to be flown home, but still needed to be taken off his cruise. So in a fun turn of events Stian came to visit the Gould for half an hour bringing the patient over, as well as a bunch of other people we know from over there. It was really good to see him, he looks well, they've only just started their cruise though, so he's still got a long way to go, whereas I'm ready to get off the boat now.

So now we're in the Drake, rolling around like crazy, so few faces at breakfast this morning........

The Nathaniel B Palmer, pretty cool seeing it from this angle. Stian was in the zodiac....

Stian was met with a muddy goodbye from the mud cruise. Everyone was happy to see him (and Ethan sitting next to him) and decided he needed to take a little mud back to his cruise to remember us by.