Ready and Set

In the past 3 weeks, Reinhart has returned from the Ice, Mindy has attended 2 weeks of training, and we’ve spent a week in Austria. Now I have a few days to pack before starting my 2-day orientation and leaving for Punta Arenas, Chile and then the Palmer Station for my 6 month deployment. I’ll leave Denver on March 20 and the boat to Palmer will leave Chile on 3/23 and arrive at the Palmer station on 3/28. Reinhart will deploy to Palmer for the month of May.

I did two weeks of training, which were very interesting, but completely interfered with our reunion. The first week was a Fire Brigade training course in Golden, CO. It was pretty intense. I posted some photos to Picasa, but those are the easy to capture photos. I have no pictures of being blindfolded crawling through a maze while breathing on an air tank (which was terrifying), or of being inside a burning building (which was fascinating). The second week was an Ocean Search and Rescue training course in Page, AZ where they taught us about our survival suits, assembling & piloting the Zodiacs, rescuing victims from the water, and search & rescue on land. Reinhart and I left for Austria about 12 hours after I returned from the Arizona training. We had a wonderful time with family, but especially appreciated the time together since these have been a very busy few weeks.

My official job title is Winter Assistant Supervisor of Laboratory Operations (WASLO) and I have very little idea of what I’ll be doing down there other than keeping track of the scientific equipment in Palmer’s bio lab and being a part of a few safety teams. I’ll be posting pictures to picasa (https://picasaweb.google.com/sailmaia) and keeping up this blog, so you should know soon after I do exactly what I am up to.