Life on the Lawrence M. Gould

With the current Covid requirements mandated by the NSF (National Science Foundation), we have to have a minimum of 7 days from the time the harbor pilot in Chile leaves our vessel till we dock at Palmer Station. The journey usually takes about 4.5 days but we have to kill some time. This was done in part by going out to the west side of the country when normally we would cross into Argentine waters and come out on the East Atlantic. This trip out the west into the South Pacific ocean forced us to go a bit North West whereas the Eastern route is more directly East. The scenery to the West was more mountainous though much of the good views escaped us as it was night when we went by them. We were blessed by very little storm activity in the area as we went south toward the Drake Passage.

The first three days were nice and smooth by Drake standards. Only on the last day did we hit what has become the norm for me on these trips through the Drake. About 8 hours of bad swells and chop and we were back to reasonable ride quality. Icebreakers and their typically flat bottoms don't ride well inheriently compared to a vessels with a conventional Keel.

These specially designed ships are designed to ride up on to the ice and the wieght then breaks the ice and pushes it out of the way. In the back the props are protected from ice chucks by large protective rings around the props. This allows these vessels to operate in conditions like the picture below.

So the title is Life on the Lawrence M. Gould. So I will take you on a quick tour of some of the more common areas in the rest of this blog. Tomorrow I will show you the Science areas and maybe the engine room if I can get some video loaded up on our limited connection here. This is our Galley where they serve 3 meals a day and we sometimes have meetings. We are free to scavenge food for snacks too incAse you miss a meal.

Here is my room. I got lucky and was given the room for the Chief Scientist on the cruise. It is much bigger than the usual rooms. All rooms can accomadate two people. Since there were only 12 of us on the way down we each had our own room.

This is the Lounge where a lot of time is spent watching movies or reading. Also there is good WiFi coverage here so you often see people setting up shop around the large conference table and computer terminals.

More to come tonight..... BAck to work..