Packing for me, science for Ana & Tim

I finished encasing all the settlement tiles in bubblewrap last night before going to bed. Today I distributed them across two ice chests that I had lined with more bubblewrap. I then weighted the two coolers. One weights 49 lbs and the other 50 lbs. This would be perfect except for one thing. The tiles only fill each cooler half way. The plan was to put clothes, wet suits, and other soft things on top of the tiles to keep them snugly in place, but anything I add will put the weight over the 50 lb limit enforced by United Airlines. If you go over 50 lbs they charge $100 in addition to the normal baggage fee.

This is not very glamorous stuff to be doing while in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

Ana and Tim, on the other hand, are back out in the field. Here they prepare to depart the dock in a lagoon boat.

Ana getting her slate ready to record data

In the photo below, Tim is radioing in "Palmyra Station, Palmyra Station, this is lagoon boat 3 departing the dock for Penguin Spit". He will radio in again once they reach their destination and Ana gets in the water to do her fish follow. There will be another radio call when Ana gets out of the water and they head to Sand Island for some terrestrial work. The next three radio calls will be when they arrive and depart Sand Island and when they return safely to the dock. All boats are required to be back at the dock by 5:45 pm. This way, if there is a problem, a search/rescue protocol can be implemented while there is still daylight. It is all about safety which is especially important working in such a remote location.

Tim radioing in their departure from the dock