The weather was too bad before we left to retrieve all our data loggers at Collins Glacier and Ardley Island, so hopefully Gustavo and the team will be able to find them. They will meet up with Melinda and Todd again when the ship comes back to the Base to pick them all up and bring them back to Punta Arenas. The ship is due to return to King George Island on Feb 7th and will be back in Punta Arenas on 10th Feb.

 Gustavo says the weather is currently bad (raining in Antarctica!). The ship-board group have no internet access so Melinda will not be able to post anymore blogs until she gets back, but hopefully they are all having a great time, staying warm and dry and find lots of moss and lichens.

Our flight back was uneventful (luckily).  While we were waiting at the airstrip we saw the Brazilian airforce Hercules that had a bad landing in December, it is stuck at one end of the runway, with guy ropes to stop it being damaged further by high winds.

The plane brought down some UK colleagues Pete Convey and Elise Biersma from BAS. They were joining the others on the Achilles for a 10 day cruise of Antarctic islands.  There was also a few journalists, from the ABC Foreign Correspondent program going to stay at the Russian Base, and also an Associate Press team who were getting on the ship. Hopefully there will be some interesting stories about the science.