With all our samples collected today was spent processing samples and starting the long process of packing up the labs.

First, the two male students (Steve and Zac) hosted a pancake breakfast at their hut.

A welcome meal!

They earned major brownie points is all I can say. Besides it being an excellent meal, it was nice to be all together to savor a bit the final days of this trip and to inspire us to begin the tedious job of cleaning and packing everything up.

It’s so much effort to get ready for the trip; to set-up all our gear; and to collect samples — that it seems almost a shame to be putting everything away. But we got what we came for and now its time to think about getting back to the lab where the real science begins.

The sun was above the horizon for a little shy of 4 hours today.

Midday January 31, 2011

As I’ve mentioned before, a remarkable difference given that the sun made its first appearance of the year last week, and then for only a hour.  Today, as I was heading east to the BARC lab where we did our RNA extractions and which has served as home base for Zac and me, I almost needed to put on sunglasses. Wow!

Not too much else to report right now.  The day was spent gathering all our stuff which was spread across the relatively large NARL (Naval Arctic Research Lab) campus and washing it all. Tomorrow, when it is all warm and defrosted, we’ll carefully pack it up and put it back into storage until we need it again in the spring.

marc