Greetings from Palmer Station!

We made an unscheduled stop on the Antarctic peninsula following a fire aboard ship a couple of days ago. No one was injured but the fire (on the main deck) was serious enough that two labs are now sealed for the remainder of the cruise - some items melted and others were damaged by heat and soot. Several days after cleaning, most of the thick soot is gone from the main deck though it still drifts slowly out of the ventilation ducts. We are planning to continue the cruise - most of the instruments appear to be functioning or substitutes have been found. But the e-mail servers are down on the ship, as are the instruments for making measurements while underway - it's not clear whether those can be brought back up. We hope to make up for lost time by cutting back on some en route activities so we can get into the ice as far as possible as quickly as possible - to about 72 degrees S latitude along 105 W longitude. I've been conducting surveys for marine mammals and seabirds throughout the cruise from the ice tower - we have about 10 hours of daylight. Bird densities are very low, but I've recorded about a dozen different species so far. Lots of marine mammal sightings near Palmer Station, including crabeater seals, minke whales and adult male Antarctic fur seals. bs