Hello again from the Deep South. Life around the station has been pretty exciting and spontaneous over the last several days. The spontaneity is partly due to the weather and also partly due to an unexpected — but not unwelcome — visitor.

The weather has been brutal with a late spring storm dropping a foot of snow and generating wind speeds consistently over 30 knots.

This has kept us out of the boats mostly, except for those few times when there is a break in the storm and we can head out and get a dive in. Plenty of lab work to keep us busy though.

But, the most exciting part was definitely our visitor, the James Clark Ross (JCR), a British research vessel that was coming by to drop off some supplies and also picking up some donations from our station for the British station, Rothera. And since the JCR is a ship, I will be referring to it in feminine terms.

She, the JCR, did not exactly pick a calm day to visit, but that was part of the reason she came so unexpectedly. She was trying to get to Vernadsky, another station on the Peninsula, when sea ice turned her away. So, she headed for Palmer Station, giving us about six hours notice that she would be coming. It was a very snowy day with winds in the range of 20-30 knots all day long.

This sent the station staff into high gear trying to make sure that there was space to put the stuff that they were giving us. It also made them have to gain access to the stuff we would be giving them.

The cooks then asked if they could invite about 20-30 of the ship’s crew to station to have pizza and take tours. Thus more people were needed to make pizza and to tidy up areas where the guests would visit.

And what did our group do, we planned a dive for right off the pier. I was lucky enough to get to tend the dive and stand out on the pier in the wind and snow.

I know that if I had stayed still, I would have become either a snowman or would have had a snowdrift on one side of me. As it was, I passed the time by watching the divers’ air bubbles and making snowballs to throw at anyone who would dare walk out in the open. So, needless to say, I had a pretty enjoyable time.

The JCR came into Arthur Harbor while I was busy pulling the divers out of the water and trying to keep the surge from crushing anyone or anything on the rocks. After I was done with the divers and had all the gear back up to the dive locker, I got my first glimpse of her.

She was red and gray and quite large. I couldn’t get a clear view of the ship since the snow continued to fall and she was out in the harbor a good way. She was much too large a ship to dock at our pier. Instead, we had to go to and from the ship in the zodiacs.

Most everyone on station signed up to take a tour of the JCR. Some volunteered to be tour guides for the guests, and still others volunteered to be “taxi” drivers. They would shuttle people back and forth from Palmer to the ship (these were the truly daring people since they had to be out on the water the entire time the ship was here).

After one group went out to figure out the logistics of the cargo operations and to give a formal greeting from the United States, people were told when they would be going to the ship.

I was going to be in the first group to go when the boat returned.

So, nine of us headed away from station and seven of us got to the ship. No, we did not throw any one overboard. We stopped off at one of the islands to drop off the penguin researchers before we got to the ship.

When we got to the ship, we were going to have to climb up a long ladder to get on the deck. The best part about this was the conditions we were under. We were trying to climb a rope ladder from a moving zodiac, up to a moving JCR, and the rope ladder was not attached to anything at the bottom other than some gracious people who would hold on to it — more to keep the boat from pulling away than anything else.

When the five of us made it on the deck — no one fell into the water, there were the two “taxi” drivers left in the zodiac — we were led away by one of the crew who was in training to be a mate. He took us to the bridge (the cockpit of the ship) where we met the captain. They showed us the charts of where they had been and where they were going.

We then went on a tour of the rest of the ship to see just how different she was from the American research vessels we had already been on. They had a very nice dry lab, where there were many computer terminals that were mapping the sea floor even while we were there. They had controls for all the winches and cranes as well in the labs.

We were then taken to the wet lab and chemistry lab. These were smaller than the dry lab and also did not even have a permanent aquarium on board. That was a little unexpected, but I assumed not many people would use this ship for the research that we are currently doing on station.

He then took us to the engine control room and main winch area. The engines could pump out enough power to propel the ship at 13 knots, which is rather fast for a 300-foot research vessel.

The winches were just as impressive. They could handle pulling a load of 33 tons and had over 10 kilometers of wire or Kevlar rope on three spools and 15 kilometers of wire on a fourth spool. These were used for trawling the sea floor and also for high resolution mapping of the deep sea floor.

We were then led up another staircase to the lounge/bar. There were already other people from station in there (they must have skipped the tour). The crew was very hospitable and offered anyone the beverage of his or her choice. It was a nice area and looked like it would be a good place to congregate and socialize. I talked with several of the crew and had a very relaxing time.

While we were in the lounge, several of the ship’s crew that had visited the station were coming back and were stopping in the lounge. We asked them about their visit and everyone one of them seemed to have a great time. The pizza seemed to have done it for most, and those who were won over by the pizza were definitely won over by the brownies that had been made. One of them even got the recipe because he said there was no place to find brownies like that in the United Kingdom. If that does not tell you how good our cooks are, then I don’t know what will.

Then it was time to leave, and they needed one final person for the zodiac heading back to Palmer. There were three of us there and none of us wanted to leave, so we did what all adults do when a decision has to be made, we did “Paper, Rock, Scissors.” I lost since one of the participants chose not to participate at all and stated that you can’t lose by not participating. So, I was escorted out of the lounge and to the waiting zodiac.

The ride back in was pretty wet and bumpy (wind and rough seas tend to make boat rides that way as I have found out). When I finally got back to station and looked back out to the ship, it was hard to see her since the snow was coming down so hard. I then ate some of the pizza that was left and walked out the door in time to see the JCR starting her engines and heading out of the harbor heading toward Rothera Station.

That ended a thoroughly enjoyable day here at Palmer station. All of the occupants came together in order to make the guests feel welcome, and we all in turn had a good time on their ship and entertaining them here at station.