We had a good meeting with ALE (Antarctic Logistics and expeditions) yesterday - these are the guys that provide the flights to and from Antarctica. In addition to details of gear preparation details and photos of the area, the main message was be ready to go at any time, but it could take a few days. The IL-76 airplane can only tolerate about a 20 knot crosswind landing on the blue ice runway at Patriot Hills (Antarctica). At 9 am the winds were 24-28 and at 10 am they were 20-24 knots, an improving trend. We are on alert here to put our boots on when ALE calls back witht the next update. Hopefully my next update will be from the ice. Kepp your fingers crossed.

After two days of flying we made it down to Punta Arenas - all of the team members made it safely. Tomorrow we will have an orientation meeting with ALE and finalize our packing with the plan of flying onto the ice the next day (weather permitting). Everyone is pretty tired form lots of flying . . . bed sounds good.