Today was out last day in Jubany! Steve and I went to visit our field sites for the last time, interested to see how much they have melted in the past few days. Lake Mateus was looking much more like a lake now, much more had melted and we could see distinct patches of blue where we had drilled our ice holes. We also walked to GPS Lake 15 which now had no ice left at all. While we were there we saw a ship on the horizon. Steve said it looked like the JCR so panic set in as the original plan had been to pick us up this evening before being postponed until tomorrow morning – so we wondered if we had made a mistake – we’re not quite ready and haven’t finished packing yet! The ship showed no signs of coming into the caleta so panic over.

I later spent some time walking around the base, reminiscing and reflecting on my time here over the past few weeks. It has been a wonderful time of new experiences, successful sample and data collection and a time of forming new collaborations and friendships. After dinner a group of us headed to the (no longer working) “cine” to play some table tennis before I finished my final packing and tried to sleep. Needless to say I didn’t sleep much as my mind was racing in anticipation and excitement at the thought of spending the next ten days or so on a ship …