May 8, 2000

The adventure begins...

Hamilton Students from L to R Nathaniel Warner, Marika Geertz, and Sarah Lichtenstein and Heather Anderson from Louisiana State University are dwarfed by the bow of the Research Vessel Ice Breaker Nathaniel B. Palmer at Punta Arenas Chile.










Leaving 85 degree weather in Syracuse, NY we flew south on Saturday, May 6. We took an overnight flight from Miami to Santiago, Chile and then onward to Punta Arenas arriving on Sunday afternoon. The weather on our arrival was 40 degrees, cloudy and windy.

Sunday night was spent in local hotels and we moved onto the ship this morning. The day has been spent unpacking cargo and getting the assorted labs set up.

It's a beautiful fall day here in Punta Arenas. Being in the southern hemisphere, the seasons are exactly the reverse of those at Hamilton. All the leaves are changing and a cold fall wind is blowing off the sea. Along with unpacking, the students are settling into their rooms, learning their way around the ship and exploring the town.

Our e-mail is up and running. Currently the e-mail is going out a couple times a day but as we get going this will increase to 4 times a day. We cannot access the web from the ship so we cannot view the web site. If someone has questions feel free to send them on to me tewksbda@nbp.polar.org but be sure to include enough information since I cannot see the site.

Plans call for us to sail on Wednesday morning around 7am.

Punta Arenas' latitude & longitude is 53 degrees 10 minutes south & 70 degrees 54 minutes west.

Cheers,

Dave Tewksbury

May 9 >>