We have been on station for five days now and are still getting our labs set up and our field work started. We'll have more on the how, why, and what of those issues in future journal entries. But before we could get going on much of that work, we had to learn the ropes by going through several classes and orientation meetings.

It probably doesn't surprise you that the National Science Foundation and the experts they contract with to operate their research stations don't just turn us loose in the field when we first get here. Even folks who come to Palmer every year have to go through the classes and orientation.

The first meetings were about life on the station. Stuff as simple as when meals are and how to sign up for clean-up duty and also stuff as important as what to do in case of fire. Fire prevention is a BIG deal here. The humidity is often low, particularly inside, so things are very dry. There is no fire department down the street to come help the station personnel fight a fire. And, there are only two main buildings to begin with so if one burned down...

Our next class/orientation was Boating 1 and the Islands Course on Thursday. Boating 1 is required of anyone who is going to ride in the zodiacs, inflatable boats that here range from 12 to 20 feet in length. They are the only way for us to get to and dive on most of our collecting sites. It goes over the basics of boat operations and safety in cold waters. The Islands Course goes over how to land boats on the many small islands around the station and, more importantly, how to get into and use the survival caches that are on each of the islands.

Bad weather can come up very quickly, particularly at this time of the year, and it is possible that it might not be safe to go back to the station from one of our collection sites in a sudden storm. The survival caches include four-season tents, very thick sleeping bags, backpacking stoves and fuel (the stoves can also burn boat gas), over a week's worth of food, lots of extra clothes, and all the other things one needs to "rough it" for a while in bad weather. We pulled a demo version open and made sure that everyone knew how to put up the tent and light the stove.

Boating 2 was delayed two days because of bad weather. That course is required to be able to operate the boat, and there must be two qualified operators on board each trip. The class is all "hands on" boat operation in the field, and we did it on Saturday. On Friday we did our diving check-outs. We were all certified to dive here before we came down so this wasn't a "class" so to speak but it is very important to get into all our dive gear here and make a dive off the station dock to make sure that everything is functioning properly. It was and is!