Great Day for Boating

Today I had the chance to go boating around Palmer Station with the winter-over station manager, a grantee, an NSF representative, and another fellow RPSC employee. It was a wonderful day to be on the water. We took a zodiac out to Torgersen Island, then to Norsel Point, which isn't a point anymore since the glacier has calved off enough to disconnect it from the main part of Anvers Island. We also motored around Loudwater Cove, and went to Humble Island. I saw lots of the local wildlife, including gentoo and adelie penguins, elephant seals, giant petrels and giant petrel chicks, cormorants, sheathbills... it was just beautiful. The weather was perfect, with little to no wind, and sun shining the whole day. I'll be doing work tonight, but it was well worth the trip.
We only have tomorrow left on station, so we'll finish up our work sometime tomorrow. All the ship people are invited to eat dinner at Palmer tomorrow, as a sort-of farewell. A lot of folks are coming out of Palmer on this northbound crossing and leaving the winter-over crew in place. They seem ready to get on with it, but as the current station manager said today, the good-byes never get easy.