Yesterday my US tax $ were put to good use! The Nathanial Palmer came to station as they have been doing Benthic trawls of the Scotia Arc and the government invited them in for a visit seeing as they were just off Cumberland Bay. They arrived first thing in the morning but by the time Robert had given them a talk about the Island and they had visited the museum it wasn’t until 1pm that people started to arrive on station.

As it was a stunning morning I went for a 7:00am skin over to the hydro and then as it stayed beautiful and the tide was low a lunch time run along the beach back to the hydro. As Pat and Sarah were on holiday they said I could use the bike in Carse House so in the evening I cycled 20km.

In between I worked on the jet boat resealing the sponsons and started to grind off the deck paint to apply new adhesive non skid decking.

Ali, Rob and myself split up with groups of Americans to take around on a tour of the base and they reciprocated with a tour of the ship which I didn’t go on as I had been aboard at Rothera. However, Rob was sent on a mission aboard to find me some hot chocolate Nestle Swiss Miss style. He succeed in bring me back a full Costco size box, my future camping trips are now complete. Also a plate of proper chocolate chip cookies which I scoffed down straight away – so tasty. Their generosity didn’t stop there! We were given more freshies than we have seen since The World (cruise ship last season) who gave us items back in January. A box of banannas, oranges, pears, avacados, celery, 15 heads of lettuce, more than a dozen cucumbers, potatoes and onions. Tonight we are all full having feasted on all the delicious food. Hence my tax $ at work seeing as I get to pay the US government despite not being in the US for 17 months!