a long day...

This morning began with a very loud ringing of the phone waking myself and my roommate, Sally. It was just before 7am (in Ushuaia - but more like 2am in Los Angeles) and Michael was calling to see if I was awake. Hah!

I don't know how the morning past so quickly, but helping to organize the registration of all the participants and handing out of all the trip goodies (jackets, t-shirts, pin, patches, stickers, and who knows what else was in their packets!)

I made two trips to the stationary store for photocopies, pens, labels, etc... all the little, but important things required to organize an expedition of almost 60 people.

People are divided into 6 teams: alpha, bravo, charlie, delta, echo, and foxtrot. The first three teams are dive teams, delta is made up of some divers and some non-divers and echo and foxtrot are non-divers. I'm in delta.

You should check out the passengers on the website under "The Explorers".

My jobs (so far) are to assist with uploading blogs to the website via iridium (satellite) phone (with help from Jorgen), and to collect the survey forms from everyone, every night. The forms are to collect data on what animals we see each day. This information will probably be included in the blog each day, too, that will be written by Wendy. If I can get it done in time. Another of my jobs will be to take questions posted to the website to the scientist and get answers and post them on the blog.

We should be able to post one blog per day, but we'll see how the phone treats us - and the weather.

We will board tomorrow afternoon around 4pm, but check out at most hotels is at 10am, so there will be piles of luggage in the lobby at the Cesar Hotel who is letting us use their restaurant as a staging area tomorrow. We should get underway tomorrow around 6pm... then hit the Drakes passage around 1am on saturday morning.

The plan is about 2.5 days of travel to the penninsula. To keep people occupied, there is a pool (like for football) to see when the first iceberg is spotted. There was also some talk about soccer, but I'm not sure if that actually means playing soccer on deck or what?!

This will probably be my last live personal blog entry for this trip because if we are using iridium phone, it will take for ever just to upload to the main blog (nevermind the expense!), so check out the main blog, www.elysiumepic.org and it is the second link down in the menu on the left.

Sorry, no photos for today, but I'll include one from yesterday.

suddenly, a new adventure

Two days rolled into one...

After less than one week's notice, I was on a plane from Los Angeles to Lima to Santiago to Ushuaia. I only purchased this international airfare 3 days ago - who knew it could be done and for less than $1300? I am flying LAN airlines all the way there and all the way back, but via different routes.

The plane was delayed about 30 minutes at LAX. Our pilot said it was due to airport operations and I am guessing it had to do with the rain. The way to Lima was mostly cloudy, but I took a few shots of Baja California in the beginning of the flight - one shot looks like there is a red tide in the Gulf of California (below).


(click on the photo to enlarge)

It was about 8 hours from Los Angeles to Lima, non-stop. Then less than 2 hours of layover there, then on a plane to Santiago.

Santiago was more of a pain that I thought it was going to be. Being a US Citizen, I had to pay 131 USD reciprocity fee just be in Chile, then go through immigration. That took up some of my 4 hour layover, then I slept in the airport for a couple of hours, which was good sleep. They took my larger carry-on and checked it in, then at boarding time, the crew must have found something on the plane that warranted an inspection because we all sat back down and were told that they'd have an update for us in 40 minutes. This is when I ran into Cabell and Ernie who were also on my next flight. True to their word, at 11:40am, the airline directed us to another gate and we boarded there about 1.5 hours behind schedule. Good thing there were no connecting flights after this one.

The scenery between Santiago and Punta Arenas was beautiful. Snow capped mountains and water and clouds. Our plane touched down in Punta Arenas... basically to get off the plane with all our carry-ons, then go through immigration (yet another stamp in my passport) and then get right back on the airplane. Strange.

The scenery from there to Ushuaia was the same types of things, but only more snow and more beautiful. About an hour more of flying, we landed in Ushuaia, but not before I got a photo of the town and snow capped mountain background (below).


(click on the photo to enlarge)

To my amazement (and some of this is probably due to jetlag and sleep deprivation), all 3 of my bags and I arrived safely in Ushuaia. I was put in a cab to the Albatross Hotel. Meanwhile, Ernie and Cabell were both missing a bag at first, but those got found. But then Cabell's bags were almost confiscated - all of them, forever. Luckily, the customs staff showed some mercy and Cabell arrived at Cesar Hotel with all 16 of his bags about the time I walked over there from the Albatross to figure out why my name was not on the reservations list there. My name wasn't on the reservation at either place, but Michael was at Cesar and fixed it.

So I am now at the Cesar Hotel Hostel: http://www.hotelcesarhostal.com.ar/. Had a shower, a local brewed cerveza called 'the Beagle' (as in Darwin's ship), pizza, 2 bottles of water and a ton of vitamin C.

The temperature is chilly out, but actually quite nice until the breeze blows - then it's pretty cold.

There is a science meeting tomorrow at 11am that I will attend. And I think I have been assigned to the visual index team which meets at 1:30pm tomorrow.

I've set up this blog and hope to keep posting here, but we shall see how the internet access goes.

I hear music outside my room window. Sounds like a loud radio playing. But I will try to sleep anyway. :)

Good night.