Antarctica Blog

We got Ash dropped off at the airport and decided to hold onto the car for the remaining days before our flight out. To kill the time we drove up into Eugella National Park to look for platypus. We stayed in a bungalow in Fitch Hatton Gorge for two nights unwinding. We went for a nice hike to a couple of waterfalls and for a drive around the park. No platypus though. We found out when we got back to Mackay that we were looking in the wrong place.

Tues the 22nd started at 5am in Mackay and finished in Denver, CO about 30hrs later at 3:30pm the same day. No, really! Because we crossed the international date line we actually arrived in Denver 15 minutes before we left Sydney on our transpacific flight. Our good friends Amy and Eric (who came to visit us at Boccalatte last summer) picked us up at the airport. We spent the week at Eric’s house in Boulder and they introduced us to their friends and showed us around the town. We made a trip into the city to the Raytheon Polar Services Company offices to talk about work for next year. We still have no definite answers.

At the moment we are in the town of Silverthorne in Summit county. We are staying at the condo of some very generous friends in Denver. The Spelmans are the parents of some fellow Antarcticans and model citizens of Wheat Ridge, CO . When Luci and I were planning on coming out to the Raytheon job fair in 2003 to find work in Antarctica, our friend Kirk said we should stay with his parents. Karen and Allen put us up in their home and offered to let us stay in their condo while we waited to hear something from Raytheon. We had Easter lunch with the Spelman family on Sunday and then came up to the condo where we have been snowboarding/skiing.

On Monday we went to Arapahoe Basin where it was a little windy but in general a beautiful sunny spring day. Yesterday, I went alone to Copper Mountain where it snowed on and off most of the day. I spent the morning on the lower slopes around the Timberline Lift and in the afternoon had some amazing runs in the Spaulding Snow Bowl.

It took a while to figure out that, in Australia, most internet places don’t let you use USB devices. Since I type the blog and edit the pictures on our laptop (a very tiny Sony Picturebook) then save it to my jumpdrive to bring to the internet place, this was a serious hindrance. This is the primary reason that I haven’t updated in a little while. But, more significantly, I haven’t written because we have been out-straight.

In Townsville, we met up with the first part of the crew of the Stargazer; Jessy and Kevin. We decided to split the cost of a car rental to drive to Airlie Beach. We made a stop over for the night in the town of Bowen, where we soon discovered that the town was deserted. Even the backpacker’s was closed for the season. It was in Bowen where we first heard about the Cyclone headed for northern Queensland. It made landfall much farther north than we were planning on sailing but was forecast to affect the weather patterns in the entire Queensland area. Now we know what the “South Pacific Special” we got on our charter is all about.

For the time being, the weather stayed nice. When we arrived on the Whitsunday Coast, we drove straight to the ferry terminal in Shute Harbor to catch the ferry to Hamilton Island where the rest of the crew (Ash and Ann) were awaiting aboard our sailing vessel; Stargazer. The Stargazer is a Beneteau 363: a 36 foot shore cruiser with a furling headsail and a double reefing mainsail. In the hold, the boat has a small kitchen, a navigation station and room to sleep six in relative comfort. I still managed to hit my head on everything. We chartered it from The Moorings who have boats all over the world. We arranged to spend our first night onboard to avoid having to get rooms at the resort on the island. We were allowed to use all the resort’s facilities so we spent the next morning in the pool and, later, we did our first provisioning at the small store.

Before going any furthur I should introduce the Crew. The Skipper of the boat was Ash Hoffman. Ash is a Shuttle driver at McMurdo who got his start on the ice in the Galley like Luci and I. We started throwing around the idea of charting a boat together at the end of last season. Last spring Ash solo sailed a 28ft boat from NJ to MDI, Maine, which I tried to be a part of but, our schedules did not coincide. At the beginning of this season Luci and I presented the idea to him again. At the time, Luci and I didn’t have much sailing experience, so we left the requisitioning of the boat up to him. Since we wanted to keep the price down and be in good company, we knew we were going to need some more crew. Ash found someone with a little sailing experience who really wanted to do some sailing in either NZ or Aus. Ann works in Cargo, loading and unloading planes and is from northern MN. One day at lunch, Luci and I got to talking with our friend Jessy who works outfitting scientist with their field equipment. As it turned out, she and her boyfriend Kevin, a McMurdo fireman and a USCG captain’s license holder, had plans to take a dive-course in the same area we were planning on sailing. We told them we still had two slots on our boat. They were in.

By afternoon, we were underway with fair winds and calm seas. We made our first anchorage at Hook Island in Nara Inlet and made grilled chicken burritos for dinner. In the morning, we went ashore on Hook Island and went for a short hike to a cave that aborigines inhabited before the arrival of Europeans. In the process of landing, I cut a gash in my shin on a oyster shell imbedded in a rock. It looked really nasty but has healed pretty quickly. That afternoon we sailed to the north end of the island to Butterfly Bay and made chicken curry for dinner. We got our first taste of the swells being generated by Cyclone Ingrid that afternoon and into the evening.

The forecast for the next couple of days was not sounding great so we decided to leave the islands behind and head for the mainland. We cut across the inside passage with the wind and waves to stern and were in a berth at the Abel Point Marina by afternoon. We went our own ways for dinner. The idea was to re-supply in the morning and get underway by afternoon. Luci, Ann and I got a taxi to the grocery store and shopped for the last 4 days of our trip. The weather was being really indecisive but we decided to stick to the program and got underway before they had to kick us out of the Marina.

As soon as we got out of the harbor the weather broke. We were pelted by an rainstorm that varied in intensity throughout the day. The winds were manageable while we were in the bay, but when we went raise the mainsail, we discovered that it had a ½ meter rip in the leech. It would be the next afternoon at the earliest that we would be able to make it to Hamilton Marina for repairs so, in the meantime, we had only our headsail (it was all we wanted to use in the increasing winds anyway). To make steps in the direction of our home port, we decided that anchoring the night in Nara inlet again would be the best choice. When we got out in the channel we were facing swells and 20-25 knot winds punctuated by showers. The Ladies found that sitting on the gunwales was the most comfortable place to be on the boat in these conditions. Ash and I switched between the helm and manning the sails. Kevin fished until we did a 360deg tack that caught the line in the prop and rudder. With a mask and a knife I was able to dive under the boat and recover the lure and untangle the line from the prop but I think after two days of catching nothing, he had had enough. The strong winds blew us of course and we had to tack and motor to get to the inlet. We arrived after dark to find the lights of about 40 other boats seeking refuge. Some of them were the big cruising ships that took tourists on 3-5 day trips around the islands. That night we ate grilled sausages.

It was a bit stressful anchoring in pitch dark and light fog using only a flashlight and the depth meter. In the morning we found ourselves about 10 meters from shore. We were in deep water but we decided to get underway just the same. We weren’t sure what we would find once we got out of the inlet. As it turns out the seas were much calmer than the evening before and it was sunny. We decided to sail between Whitsunday Island and some minor islands for protection from the wind and to take full advantage of the tide. The morning went by quickly but the afternoon dragged on. Once in the small channel that approaches the Hamilton Marina we found ourselves pointed directly into the wind making the sail useless. We had to go under motor at an agonizing 3 knots. We arrived by mid afternoon and the guys at the marina quickly went to work taking down the mainsail. We all fanned out around the resort doing various things to amuse ourselves.

The guys had the sail repaired and replaced by 9am but it was about 11 before we finally got all the crew rounded up and got underway. We were planning on going to Whitehaven Beach on the east side of Whitsunday Island; one of the jewels in the Whitsunday crown. To do so would take us “outside” into the biggest seas and wind we had yet faced. We had 2-3m swells and 25-30kn winds. With a reefed mainsail and a half-furled headsail we made it to the safety of Whitehaven bay in record time. I was at the helm when we set our fastest speed of 9.5 knots. We anchored for lunch and a swim at this sugar white beach that stretched for miles. Ash had the idea to tie one of the fender balloons to the back of our 4hp skiff and tow us 1 by1 around the shallows. It was fun. In the afternoon we cruised up the beach and anchored in Tongue Bay for the night where we saw sea turtles. We found out later that there is a salt water crocodile (“saltie” in Aussie-speak) that is often seen cruising the waters of the bay.

The next morning was sunny and nice so we piled into our little skiff like so many clowns and went ashore to a viewing platform where we got an amazing view of the entire Whitehaven Beach. We had lunch and half of the crew stayed on the beach while Ash, Luci and I went for a short sail in the improving weather. We still got hit by a rain squall but that is what the “South Pacific Special” is all about. We needed to have the boat back at Hamilton by noon the next day so, in the afternoon, we sailed back down near the beach where we had lunch the day before, and anchored for the night.

To get back to Hamilton we were going to have to go back out into the open waters south of Whitsunday Island. We left early with favorable 10-15 knot winds and were happy to find that the swells had died down. We sailed south of Hamilton island and sailed wing in wing down the channel to the marina. We arrived on time and the boat checked out perfectly. Despite the bad weather that we had in the middle of our trip I really had a great time. It was so nice to have the freedom to sail when and where we wanted to. I know some of the crew don’t feel the same but I was actually happy to have some adverse weather just for the experience.

We ate our last lunch together, split the remaining provisions and parted ways. Jessy and Kevin had a night bus to Brisbane from Airlie Beach and Ash and Ann were taking a flight directly to Sydney from Hamilton Island where Ann was to connect to her flight back to the states and Ash was meeting friends in the City. Luci and I caught the ferry to Airlie Beach for the night where we were faced with the same question of renting a car or taking the bus to Mackay where our long flight back to the states was to begin.

That night, while we were making dinner, we were surprised to see Ash and Ann walk in to the kitchen at our hostel. They had missed their flight and had booked alternate flights from Mackay. Ann was taking a bus that night to catch the plane the next morning and make her connection. Ash was flying the next afternoon so the three of us split the cost of a rental car to get to Mackay. Before we left Airlie beach we went to check out this didgeridoo store that Ash had told me about. They had free shipping which piqued my interest. I ended up spending way too much on a very nice didge that I had shipped to Italy so I can play this summer at the hut.

We went for the hike on Magnetic Island that we had hoped to. We even saw a Koala at very close range. We reached the top of a rise and we looking out over the other side of the island and I said to Luci, “I think this would be a good place to spot Koalas’. As we turned to our right, we saw one sitting up in the crook of a small tree right next to us. He didn’t seem the least bit concerned with our presence. As I went for my camera, I discovered, to my dismay, that I forgot to put the memory card back in it after editing pictures the day before. So we have no pictures of our walk. A little father down the trail we saw what I think was a wallaby; a small kangaroo-looking thing.

We are back in Townsville running errands before our charter begins. We are trying to decide whether to take the bus or rent a car to drive the 4 hours south. I am also trying to decide whether to buy a didgeridoo and tote it around with us for the rest of out trip.

For just a moment I feel like I have to plug Virgin Blue and low cost airlines in general. For short hauls they can’t be beat. The way they work is that you pay a low price and get nothing complimentary: no headsets, no movie, no drinks, no meals. Of course they are available if you want to pay for them and the prices are not exaggerated. I got a big sandwich and a coke for about $7 US and the VB cabin crew were amusing and service oriented.

As soon as we arrived here in Queensland, the most northern part of our trip so far, we found out that swimming was going to be a problem, as we thought it might be. During the summer months, winter in the Northern Hemisphere, is stinger season. There are two species of stinging jellyfish around tropical coastal areas. As Luci always likes to recall, the treatment for a Box Jellyfish sting is: 1) Douse sting with vinegar, 2)Prepare to resuscitate. On the ferry ride across the bay to Magnetic Island we could see the prevalence of the jellyfish in the water.

The weather was nice when we arrived and we went for a walk to the grocery store in the afternoon. The coastline reminds me of the Maine coast in places. By nighttime, though, we found ourselves in the midst of a tropical monsoon. Luckily, we have a TV in our room and the Australian Formula One Grand Prix is on this weekend. We also found out that we can get the Italian news broadcast TG1 every morning. Obviously, we hope to get outside some while we are here. There is a prolific population of Koalas here on magnetic island and we hope to see one while we are here.

Since we are only in the Sydney area for a few days we had to cram the whole city tour into a couple of hours. We took the bus in from the beach and did a walking tour of the downtown. Rather than judging the restaurant by it’s menu, Luci, flat out, refuses to eat Italian food “abroad”; meaning outside of Italy. Eating out to her means either Pad Thai, Fish and Chips or, Sushi. All of which I like, but can only eat so much. Owing to Australia’s large Italian immigrant population, I was finally able to keep Luci out of the sushi bar got her into a small Italian café. They served a typical dish from Milan, Cotolette Milanese, and she liked it.

The City Center reminds me a little of Minneapolis with it’s skyways linking buildings in the downtown area. We went on a mini wild goose chase looking for a travel agency that could sticker our return tickets to Italy…unsuccessfully. We got a comprehensive look at Sydney office life, though. We walked through the Sydney botanic gardens and walked around the Opera House. In case you were wondering, the façade is made up of a mosaic of tiles. We decided not to sample Sydney’s nightlife in order to save money. We made it back to our beach flat at Bondi Beach just in time for a massive thunderstorm to blast through.

Tomorrow we leave for Townsville. We have a flight on Australia’s low-cost airline Virgin-Blue. We have a hotel booked on Magnetic Island (named by Cook when his compass gave him strange readings as he passed).

The Treaty House was interesting. What I found much more interesting than the Pakeha (European) relics were the Maori ones. Housed at the sight is a massive ceremonial war canoe that is launched once a year on the anniversary of the treaty signing. Next to the Treaty House is a Maori meeting house. It contains exquisite carvings that make the Treaty house itself pale in comparison. I guess, being from New England, I have seen my share I have seen my share of English Colonial architecture. After exploring the site, Luci read while I flew my kite. Luci was supposed to be taking digital pictures (I was shooting black and white film) but never took the camera out of her bag.

We are now at Bondi Beach outside of Sydney. Once again we had a smooth flight. Our luck is bound to run out sooner or later. This morning Luci went to Yoga while I went surfing. I figured that since I was in Australia I couldn’t pass up the opportunity. Being a snowboarder and skateboarder it would seem logical that surfing would come naturally. I caught a few waves (and even stood up on a couple) but it is harder than I thought. Skateboarding and snowboarding is almost entirely in the legs, while surfing takes a great deal of upper body strength. I am not terribly fond of the water nor a very good swimmer either which makes it more difficult. It was fun just the same; if I had about a week I think I could get quite good.

Unfortunately, inside the Great Barrier Reef there is not much surfing. But we are going there for the sailing. We decide to change our flight from Sydney to Cairns in the north of the country to Sydney to Townsville a bit farther south and closer to the Whitsunday coast where we begin our next boat charter. It would have been 12 hours of bus ride to get from Cairns to the Whitsunday coast so we opted to just skip it. This way we will be able to meet up with a couple of the rest of the crew to do some grocery shopping before we set out. They are in Townsville now taking a diving course.

The weather was nice when we first arrived in Sydney but there have been some pretty intense thunderstorms passing through in the afternoons.

We have done well to reserve in advance for everything. It makes travel seem a little less spontaneous and free but it saves a lot of hassle. Being summer here in the southern hemisphere it is high season which means everywhere is booked solid; hotels, busses, sailing schools. Good thing for us we had it all sorted out before we had to run around with our packs from hotel to hotel looking for a vacancy like we have seen so often on this trip. Given the short duration of our stay, we want to make the most of our time here.

On Monday we started our sailing course. Our instructor was an English girl name Jenny, here in NZ on a working holiday visa. The program last 5 days. The first two days are instruction toward our Yachting NZ level 1 certificate. We went over the fundamentals of sailing as well as proper anchoring and harbor etiquette; much of which I was already exposed to growing up and working in a fishing community. It was good to get a refresher though, and for Luci it was all new. Jenny said we caught on very quickly and by the end of the second day we could handle the boat on our own. The last three days we took the boat (a Davidson 20 foot) out on our own, within the confines of the Bay of Islands and stayed aboard in various anchorages.

It really is a beautiful and unique place. The only thing I could compare it to is a sub-tropical version of coastal Maine. Much of the vegetation and bird life here are native to NZ. Our fist night, we anchored at Marsden Cross, a remote and secluded beach on the mainland. It was the sight of the first Christian service in NZ, Christmas day, 1814. There is a reserve for the native and very rare Kiwi bird there. Though we didn’t see any of them, we could hear them at night. The next day we shot across the bay along the outer limit line and saw multitudes of birds including gannets which dive from high in the air into the water to catch fish and little blue penguins, a warm water cousin of the penguins we have around McMurdo in the summer. That night we anchored at Urupukapuka Island, one of several islands in the bay set aside as wildlife reserves. We went ashore and did some walking and did some swimming from the boat. On our last day we cruised down the main passage between the islands and the mainland and saw several pods of porpoise along the way. In the afternoon, went ashore briefly in the town of Russell to see the small historical museum there.

We made it back to the charter pier not a minute too late. We are back at the Mousetrap now, a beautiful little Hostel with a maritime theme and a nice view of the bay. We are here for a few days doing laundry and getting our land legs back. Tomorrow we are going to the Treaty House where the history Treaty of Waitangi between the Maori and European settlers was signed. It is a place of cultural and historical significance to all Nzlanders that we missed when we were here last year. On Monday we have the bus booked to take us back to Auckland where we fly out to Australia to begin the next part of our trip.

We got our last things mailed out from the Clothing Distribution Center (the USAP operations center in NZ) so now are packs are finally the ideal size for travel. In all I think we spend over $200 to mail stuff away. Somehow we really managed to accumulate a lot of stuff while in Antarctica. I don’t quite see how considering I sold my PlayStation and got rid of or left behind a lot of clothes.

Since Christchurch is a cash vacuum, we have been cooking in and doing free activities. The Kiwis are mad about their activities: from skydiving to Zorbing they have it all of you are willing to pay. Good thing I brought my kite. Day before yesterday we met up with our friend Sasha and went flying. The wind was variable but we got some good flights in.

In the afternoon we took the bus over to Lyttleton, the Christchurch port. Sasha got us on board the Nathaniel B Palmer for an informal tour. The America Tern was also in port for fuel and to offload some of the Kiwi cargo from Scott Base that got loaded when the ship was at McMurdo. We got to watch it leave on its way back to the States. Afterwards, we went to dinner with a big group of scientist from the NBP for their farewell party. It was at a nice restaurant that served the closest thing to traditional NZ cuisine that I have had. It had a nice view and we saw our first real sunset since being back in the part of the world where the sun sets more that once a year.

Yesterday we went to the beach at Brighton and flew the kite a little. Today we took a thorough tour of the famous Christchurch Botanic Gardens. One of the best free activities in all of NZ. Tomorrow we have our flight up to Auckland. We don’t plan on spending much time there though. We have a bus on Sunday up to the Bay of Islands where we start our sailing course.

Smooth. We arrived in Christchurch without a glitch. The ritual of Bag-drag was painless. Bag-drag is when you drag all your luggage up the hill to the Movement Control Center. This can be quite laborious when you have a lot and if there is a line. We mailed a lot of stuff to our various homes around the globe to pick up as we pass by. Plus, I used the UT shop truck to haul our stuff up the hill early to avoid lines. We rode a Delta
(the same one I drove out Cape Evans) the 30 miles out to Pegasus Field, the white ice runway. What makes it a white ice runway is that it is made by a laborious process of compacting layer upon layer of snow until it is hard enough to land a C-17 cargo plane on.

We loaded very soon after arriving at the runway and took off immediately. We were 140 passengers flying to CHC but the C-17 is much more spacious and comfortable that the old 141s. They actually have seats that face forward with ample leg room and endless headroom. We arrived in Christchurch almost exactly 5 hours after takeoff. Passport control was smooth, as was customs. We had all our issue Extreme Cold Weather gear returned to the Clothing Distribution Center, hopped a bus into town and were checked in to our hotel in just over an hour. We went out immediately and ordered Indian food. Asian is the only way to go on NZ and in Christchurch there is a bountiful selection.

Today we ran errands. We went to immigration to get out visa extended and were successful; we went to the travel agent to get our tickets re-issued and to get our Australian visas and were successful; we went to the bank to deposit funds in our NZ account and were successful. The only big disappointment was that we were unable to rent a car. We called about 10 different places and went to about 10 others in town and no one had anything.

I got a call from our friend Sasha who is a researcher on the NBP. They were on their way into Lyttleton harbor on their return from McMurdo. Tomorrow we are going to meet up and, if the wind is good, we are going to fly my stunt kite.

It has been too long since I last wrote. I regret not having kept up with the blog as much as I did last year. I apologize to those of you who were following it closely. Since we are on our way off the ice to begin a few months of traveling, I think it would be a good time to start writing again.

The season has been eventful. Luci became the official interpreter for the Italian program when they came through town on various occasions and was publicly recognized for her efforts. I had a chance to try my own hand at interpreting. At the end of December there was an accident at the French Base of Dumont d”Urville, about 800 miles away, where a cargo handler broke his neck. Since they do all their re-supply operations by ship, the Italians used one of their small Twin Otter planes to pick him up and fly him here to McMurdo where they got stuck for a couple of days in bad weather. The patient spoke only French and the Italian doctor accompanying him spoke only Italian and French. Since I am the only one on the base with a decent grasp of both languages, I was called upon to assist during their stay here. After six days of immobilization, he finally made it to Christchurch where he underwent surgery. He was very lucky.

At about the same time, a saga of historical significance was unfolding. It started a few years ago when a team of Russian “researchers” landed at South Pole in an antiquated bi-plane; I think it was a Tupelev. It was experiencing mechanical problems and was forced to land. The passengers (and crew) aboard refused to get back on the plane in fear of their lives, and were eventually flown off the continent in American planes and their bi-plane was left at pole with an uncertain future.

At the beginning of this season it became more and more apparent that the Big Iceberg B-15 was going to cause problems with re-supply operations here at McMurdo. It had moved into a position where it was blocking the breakup of the seasonal ice in McMurdo sound and not allowing it to drift out to sea like it should. For the past few years the sister Coast Guard Cutters the Polar Sea and the Polar Star have come down to cut a channel in the ice and escort the tanker and vessel to the Ice Pier at McMurdo. But, this year, the Polar Star was in dry-dock in Seattle, its home port, undergoing major repairs to its propulsion systems. It was evident that there was going to have to be another icebreaker to take the place of the Star in McMurdo sound this year and the only one available to do the job was an ageing Russian Icebreaker, the Krasin. Someone at the NSF had the bright idea that they might be able to arrange some sort of exchange. The terms of the deal were, essentially, that the US program would help the Russians get their plane out of Pole if they helped us get our re-supply vessels into McMurdo.

So, around the beginning of the year, a large cargo plane owned by the Russian natural gas giant Gasprom arrived at Pegasus Ice Runway with a crew of 30 journalists and mechanics. Half flew immediately to Pole and the other half stayed at McMurdo documenting life with the US Antarctic Program. There stay went off without incident and they even got to document out annual New Years Day celebration of Icestock. After about a week of work they got the plane at pole running and were able to fly it to McMurdo where they dismantled it and loaded on the cargo plane to fly off the continent.

At about the same time, the Polar Sea arrived in Town and immediately began showing signs of propulsion system problems; the same ones that put the Star in dry-dock. The ship sat at the pier for a week waiting for divers to arrive and attempt to repair one of the props. It became more and more essential that the Krasin arrive before the channel began to refreeze. In the meantime, the Krasin, the fuel tanker Buck, and the Nathanial B. Palmer, and the Klebnikov arrived at the ice edge. The NBP is one of the USAP research vessels and the Kelbnikov is a tourist cruise ship. In a matter of days we had 5 ships in the bay. The Buck off-loaded its cargo and departed without a hitch. Soon after, the cargo ship American Tern arrived and the period of the season know officially as Offload, began. It is a week of 12 hr shifts, traffic and general chaos when the vessel is unloaded and reloaded with waste. This year it went smoother than expected and last week we all watched as the Tern, Krasin, and Sea left McMurdo Sound in a convoy; the last ships at McMurdo until next January.

With the end of Offload comes the end of the Mainbody season. The C-141s have been officially retired from the USAP and the last mission was flow last week. They have been replaced by the more efficient and reliable C-17. All the field camps have been brought in and we are beginning to see visible signs of a decrease in population as people are transported off the ice, 140 at a time. We are also seeing new faces and old friends returning for the winter. We have spent the day cleaning our room getting it ready for inspection. Our bags are packed and boxes of stuff to be sent back to the states have been shipped out. Saturday was our last day of work and we are scheduled to fly out tomorrow. Tonight we have our Bag Drag where we bring our luggage up to be loaded on a cargo pallet. Then it is just a matter of time before we are transported to the New Zealand summer.

We plan to do some sailing this year. We will spend a few days in Christchurch sorting out our tickets, visas, etc. and then fly up to the North Island where we are going to take a sailing course. It is a 5 day course where you spend 2 days learning practical skills and 3 in a 20ft boat on your own. After that, we fly to Australia where we have chartered a boat with 4 other friends from the Ice in the Whitsunday group near the Great Barrier Reef. At the end of March we are headed to Denver where we will be working out the details for employment next year and hope to get some snowboarding in. Keep checking back for updates. I promise.