the research vessel

The way things are supposed work around here is this:
1) The Oden, a Swedish Icebreaker comes down and knocks out a channel to our Winter Quarters Bay.
2) The fuel tanker, Gianella, finds its way down here and we unload fuel.
3) The research vessel, Nathaniel B. Palmer pulls into port to offload and load new equipment and science personnel.
4) The cargo ship, American Tern, rolls around to offload new supplies and take a load of retro containers back to The States.

The way things have gone so far:
1) The Oden broke ice and has been chomping away at the channel making plenty of way for the ships.
2)The fuel tanker got stuck in the ice a few hundred miles from our ice pier. This is the first time a ship has been stuck in this sort of ice. The Oden had to go out to rescue it. However, the icebreaker cannot use the kind of fuel we have here, so it won't have enough fuel to make it back to Sweden.
3) The Nathaniel B. Palmer arrived in port first and had to hustle their researchers off and on the boat in front of the fuel tanker.
4) The fuel tanker is finally due in town today at which point, we unload fuel for a few days and cannot walk out to Hut Point because of all the hoses and such.
5) Due to the misadventures of the Gianella, the American Tern was delayed in Lyttleton, New Zealand and now carries fuel which is supposed to be offloaded to the Oden. There is yet to be a determination on the logistics of that transfer.

Yesterday, we were allowed to tour the Palmer. I was on the ship last year, too, but the second time around I learned a few new things; there was a fire on board last September, they were close to the boat that sank between Argentina and the Antarctic Pennisula, and they can send their research equipment to a depth of 5000 meter below the surface of the water.

Boat tours are the one way to get out on our ice pier which is constructed every-so-often out of layers of ice and dirt. This particular ice pier cracked last year and talk has been circulating about pulling it out to sea and beginning again. A special permit is obtained to send this one adrift as it's not a natural occurrence in the sea here.

I think my favorite part of the tour was being on the bridge, seeing the place where the boat is operated from, and then walking the catwalk around it. It's a disconcerting feeling to walk over water. The ship slants toward you and you can't lean into the ship well.