After a blessedly uneventful crossing, last night we tied up safely alongside Palmer Station. Today will be spent unloading the cargo we carried down for them, including a resupply of fresh food stuffs and various scientific supplies. They were very happy to see us. (Hopefully we didn't freeze the lettuce).

The crossing down was beautiful and much like being on a boat often is, a bit more rolly, and a bit colder than I am used to, but fundamentally not much different from being offshore anywhere else. And then yesterday morning I woke up and felt like I had wandered into a nature documentary. Antartica is utterly its own place, unlike any other place I have ever been, and completely unmistakable.

Ship's internet here is actually worse than ship's internet on the Sea Lion, so I can't post any of the photos I've been taking, but I have been managing to get a photo or two out over Instagram (@uptonyarns). Posting involves being a bit more stubborn than our internet, which means that it sometimes takes me a while to get things to go through. For some reason the ship's internet will eventually let me post photos, but it has decisively beaten back every attempt I have made to reply to the comments people have left. So, if you have commented, know that I have seen it and very much appreciated it, and probably spent 20 minutes trying to get the internet to send my reply before heading back to work or otherwise giving up.

I fly home on August 5, so any and all yarnish stuff will be dispatched sometime shortly thereafter (I may need to catch up on some sleep).