I have arrived

I made it to Greenland! I freaked out a little bit thinking I had the wrong day or time when the bus to pick me up which was supposed to arrive at 0500, didn't show up until 0630. Other than not getting that extra hour of sleep, everything turned out just fine.


The view from my seat as we were getting ready to leave NY.

The plane we rode in was amazing. It is a Hercules C-130 plane. These are the planes used for getting up to Greenland and down to Antarctica. All the cargo is strapped down in the middle of the plane and the people are on bench seats along the side. At least you can get up and walk around the plane easily. I am glad I didn't have to use the toilet, it is essentially a metal pot with a curtain surrounding it.


Me and the plane during our refueling stop in Goose Bay, Labrador.

When we arrived, it was the fastest customs I had ever been through. The man stamped each of our passports and then left. We rode a bus over to the Kangerlussuaq International Science Support station where all the other passengers. Mary McCready picked me up and we drove the few kilometers out to Kellyville where the incoherent scatter radar is hosted. My room is in the same building as the controls for the radar. I am excited about staying in my slippers for most of the week.

This morning, I got up and started troubleshooting our data acquisition system with the help of our amazing engineer, Paul. Pull that card, put that there, turn it on, turn it off, change the card, pull the flash drive out, etc. We are still working through the issues, but I am confident that it will be fixed in the next day or so.


How I found our system.


I love macro shots of electronics.

In a lull between trouble shooting, I decided to go out and check on the coils. I followed the cable out and there didn't appear to be any cracks or tears in the casing. The coils are firmly buried under the tundra. Before we lost contact with the acquisition system, the spectrograms appeared like normal, so the coils are probably just fine.


Location of the coils. You can see the cable going under the dirt.

I also took some pictures of the radar, surrounding tundra, and our cable. I knew exactly which cable to follow!




I was advised by a fellow colleague, who had been out here before and knew that I am vegetarian, that I should probably bring my own food for my stay here. The day before I left, my husband and I went to the grocery store and stocked up on non perishable food stuffs. I think I'm not going to starve this week.