Punta Arenas, 5. 5. 2010

Today has been our first serious day on the Palmer. We've unpacked boxes from last years cruise (and found some pleasant surprises - i.e. Yiwu's giant (GIANT) drinking mug), and picked up new material at the AGUNSA wear house. Most importantly, we got the LISST and LOPC instruments safely secured them onto tables for passing the Drake. We're all excited and curious to see how rough it will really get... The LISST and LOPC will be used to measure plankton of all different size classes while on station, i.e. while not chasing the whales. The second high-light of the day was the construction of our patent-worthy Gravitational Plankton Splitter (GPS). Picture and manuals publication will follow soon.