Sea Ice!

The passage across the Drake was pretty mellow. The seas were a little
churned up, but this is a much bigger boat than the LM Gould (the ship we
were on in February) and WAY more stable. I'm sporting the sea patch just
in case of seasickness, but I could probably get away without it. Better
safe than miserable.

We are now about 6 hours from our first station. We are doing the
southernmost station first, and are now below the Antarctic circle. Last
night we started hitting sea ice, though it's all pretty new. The call it
pancake ice and it's pretty obvious why. Anyway, we've also had clear days
and nights, so the scenery has been pretty magical and a little surreal.
I've got some photos that will be posted to the NCSU blog soon, but I'm
going to try to send one here if I can. Note that this photo was taken at
about 12:30. It was up for about 3.5 hours. Not quite sunbathing weather.

I'm in pretty good spirits and happy to be here....