That's Erebus in the background. When the boss is away.... Fortunately, we also saw it being staged (I took the pic) and all I can really add is, my, what a beautiful sense of humor.
On a slightly more sad note, Nick, Bryan, BLee, Rusty, and the rest of Stacy Kim's awesome banthic research group (ocean bottom studies) left today.* It has been awesome laughing and making music with Nick and BLee, talking physics with Bryan, and dive-tending for Stacy and Rusty. I hope at least a few of the friendships I form here will last. I mean, who wouldn't want a friend to crash with in California or Canada? :)
*The background I should've written a while ago; apologies!
Bryan is an undergrad major at MIT, signed onto this group because he's built a bunch of robots and programmed their tethered underwater camera-carrying vehicle (ROV).
Dive-tending is basically just helping them put their gloves on and then pulling their tanks and weights when they're done. I hung out in the hut with BLee while they were down. If they don't come up in their allotted time, we sound the alarm. Their dive went safely, if less productively than earlier in the season because visibility has been reduced by almost 2 orders of magnitude (to only a few to 10 ft) due to the algal bloom precipitated by the increased sunshine through the thinning sea ice. It was cool to see it once; I think I'd get a little bored doing it more than a few times.
Nick is an undergrad at Monterey Bay, CA and was here doing his senior research project on the pile of poo the navy left in the sound before McMurdo got its waste treatment facility. He used the ROV to map the extent of the pile as well as helping Stacy with her research by diving. He's done a bunch of other things, including being a park ranger in Yellowstone.
BLee lived on a nuclear submarine as a mech for 18mos and was the ALVIN pilot for many years (small manned, early extremely-deep sub). He lives near the Bay of Fundy in Canada now and coaches soccer, passionately. :)
More on the adventures which've kept me from blogging soon...
Over&out.
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