morale support

Thanks to those who answered by plea for a response. It's nice to
hear from you. I'll assume there's a few more out there who are
listening as well and so I will continue to ramble.

We've got a little bit of a storm rolling the ship around today.
It's been a while since we've been able to detect motion! It adds a
little bit of excitement to mooring deployments, CTD's, and ping
pong. We're on our way to the Getz ice shelf, a curious and complex
shelf with multiple outlets to the ocean. It seems to be thinning
along with the other, more notorious ice shelves in the Amundsen, but
is exposed to comparatively cold water (only around 0.6C, as opposed
to the balmy 1.2C in Pine Island Bay). From there, we will track
towards the East along the ice shelf fronts of the Getz and Dotson
ice shelves, and will get as close as we can to the Thwaites Glacier.

Apparently, we ran into two fishing boats last night looking for
toothfish (aka Patagonian toothfish, aka Chilean Sea Bass). They were
fishing right over our planned CTD station. I don't know the details
of the encounter and communication, but I'll look into it. The
suggestion was made that we storm their boat to look for fresh
veggies. But my guess is they'd be limited there as well. At least
their fish is fresh!

If I were awake, it would have been strange to see another ship.

Nate + MC, I had heard from someone else on the ship that Google
Earth was planning to do something with the oceans. What do they
include/what can you map? Sea surface height/temperature/bathymetry?
Any information about the interior of the ocean (CTD records/etc?)
And I'll put brewing on the calendar for the spring. Start thinking
about recipes!

Thanks also to everyone for the suggestions on smelly laundry!
Vinegar or baking soda -- interesting. What happens if you use both
at once?

Chris