Halfway:
Today marks the day halfway between when Kelly and I left Lubbock and when we will (or plan to) arrive back in Lubbock. Weirdly enough, even though we have seven more weeks of fieldwork, I start to feel the pressure! However, one of our Soil Sisters team (although we renamed ourselves Soil Squad) is headed home this week: Alicia.
Alicia collected her final set of incubation samples yesterday from Litchfield. We had been fortunate with nice weather on previous trips, but yesterday was a very, very rainy day. Mike Burns maneuvered through the icy stretch between here and Litchfield - he positioned the front of the zodiac on top of on an icefloe and then used that icefloe to clear a path through the ice! Boating level: Expert!
I did not have my camera with me (too worried it would get wet). However, on a previous similar occasion, with admittedly less ice, we had help from the birding team. They have a SOLAS who cleared a path for us (see photo below). Perhaps next time I can capture Mike’s strategic use of the icefloe.
It was a good thing I did not bring the camera - we got so soaked!
