Welcome to our WhatsApp
Hello and welcome! I'll start by telling you what's going on with us now. Over the next few days, I'll tell you more about what we plan to do in Antarctica. As promised, each day will be a short update with a picture as long as we have the internet for it (remember- about a week after we leave port, we'll have worse internet than space!).
There are 31 scientists on this expedition. We all got to Christchurch, New Zealand around March 1st so we could leave from Lyttelton on March 6th. But we were just told this weekend that our expedition is getting delayed again because of COVID. Our new date for getting on the ship is March 18th and our new departure date is March 19th.
We can't have COVID-positive folks on the ship because hospitals are days to weeks away from the Antarctic coast- it's just not safe. We've spent most of our time here in New Zealand staying away from other people's air and wishing we'd all packed more summer clothes. We're getting to know each other with a ridiculous group chat and nightly Zoom meetings to introduce our science.
- Join us tomorrow at 1pm ET for a live ship tour and panel discussion (we say it's for 4th - 12th graders, but anyone who wants to know about deep-sea research would have fun!): https://nsf.zoomgov.com/webinar/register/WN_LbZP2DlFSEO8_hkG-AaB7Q
- Learn who's getting on the ship (eventually!): https://www.icyinverts.com/participants1.html
- Track our ship position live throughout the expedition: https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/shipid:426075/zoom:13
- Pics: Isolating in our lab bubble on a day of hikes last week! We're not doing this kind of thing anymore because we're all a little on edge after 2 weeks of departure delays, but this was a really nice morale boost. We came here to get on a very special ship to do very special science and we really want to get on with all that, so we're doing more work stuff this week that will help us do things more efficiently when we finally leave port.
Virginia
Questions? I'll answer if you email contact@VirginiaSchutte.com
Hiking Avalanche Peak Trail, Arthur’s Pass National Park (South Island), New Zealand
Bik Lab members (Tiago, Alejandro, and Mirayana) take a socially distanced beach road trip near Lyttleton, New Zealand (South Island)