Hopefully, Chuck will be treated to a similar Drake Rite as he sails north Wednesday.  It seems like just last month the he was “Back in the Water”.  After his 85 dives of “Regulating our Underwater Air” he made his “Last Dive” of the season and now heads north to join Jim at UAB.  Although the “Pod Traps” need refining for next year, he explained that sometimes species of interest make themselves easier to collect by willingly harboring themselves in “Someone Else’s House”. Chuck later described some of the unnatural shelters, like Coke bottles, removed from the water in “Earth Day Dive”. 

Craig began his expedition like a seasoned traveler with “My Bags are Packed”.  He quickly got to the “Gut of the Matter” in the lab and Palmer in general detailing the “Great Eating”, and the subsequent nightly ritual of “GASH of the Titans”.  A consequence of too much of the former activity required his “Just for the Fun of It” but eventually he did get around to the “Chemistry in Chemical Defenses.”

Philip “Joined the Team” last but hit the water diving and lab experimenting in “Getting Started at Palmer”.  His Elachista studies led to “New Life on Station” but the earlier than anticipated declining availability of his seasonal alga led him to climb the walls in “Ice Climbing”.  His diligence and persistence searching for the last of this year’s crop of Elachista certainly merits “All the Seals” of approval.   

In unison we proclaim as Maggie predicted that, “Amphipods Rule!” our season.  The hunt was always on for a pod-laden “Sponge Quarry”.  Yet there was no mention of either sponges or amphipods in her Antarctic version of “My Favorite Things”.  Obviously not an inclusive listing as she featured her favorite role-modeling females in “The Ice Ceiling” and her favorite color in “Green Palmer” 

But who needs color since Black and White is In This Year (thank you UAB Media) and apparently read all over the country.  You know, some of the best, classic reruns are in black and white and UAB in Antarctica officially goes into reruns with this final entry.  We are signing off so Craig, Philip and Maggie can devote their last few weeks at Palmer to finishing up experiments and packing up the lab. No worries – Flickr images will remain in living Technicolor! 

If you want to see us “Live! From Antarctica”, check out http://www.aptv.org/aptplus/Antarctica.asp

This streaming video prompted “Lights, Camera, Panic!” 

In closing, we thank each of you readers for visiting our site.  We hope you enjoyed the words and images we shared of this amazing continent and its incredible natural laboratory.  From all of us, to all of you, we send warm regards from this magnificent and wondrously cool place!