Good Weather, Good Times

We found a cover late last night and parked the ship there over night, only to head out at midnight to do some trawling runs.  On the way back, we got to see the cove for all it's glory in the morning light.  The cove is gorgeous!.  Sheltered from the wind and the rough waves, it was a haven all by itself, carved into the iceberg.  The dimensions of the berg (named A43K from the ross ice shelf) are a mere 20.5 nmi long and 7.5 nmi wide.  It takes us about 6hr to steam around at 12 knots.  It's a sizeable sucker.

Tribulation and triumphs!  That was what today was all about.  A weather window opened up and the Bomber was ready to go.  This time, with the top gun instructor piloting, the plane flew into 15 knot winds and dropped the payload (of GPS and nerf football) without much incident.  The Palmer Bomber then came in with a picture perfect, text book style landing. 

Our Chief Scientist was all smiles.  It was a great flight and even better landing.

However when the winds picked up, the second flight was aborted.  It was time to send the SPROV out.  The engineers on aboard did an exceptional job of putting together an ROV with just the parts that were on board.  The SPROV ( as it's known now…aka Spare Part ROV) bobbed it's way over to the side of the iceberg.  The pump built in on board started pumping water that was right up next to the berg.  This means we (nikki and i) have a 12 hr day ahead of us.  Another marathon day.  And so it goes…