Last Day in the Marshalls!
MFT: Clean Laundry!
LFP: Rain & Mosquitos
So today was our last day doing fieldwork together as a group and the last day in the Marshall Islands. We woke up pretty early so we could take the RTK and set up the base station at the other end of Majuro Island (all 35 miles away) and then RTK that area (Laura Beach). Chris stayed and packed things while the rest of us went and RTKed, GPRed, and Sampled C14 (like the new verbs?). Unfortunately, the weather decided NOT to cooperate on our last day. We had to get everything done by 1:30 since it took an hour to drive back and then we had to pack everything up that we were using plus shower and our personal gear. Of course, it decided to downpour every hour or so for like 10-15 mins. Now some of our equipment can get wet, some CANNOT get wet (GPR). Luckily, we were able to sneak in some GPR transects (ok 1.5 transects) in between rain systems. Then we left Richard holding up the RTK base antenna really high as we went and drove around getting topo data with the RTK rover. Sadly, it poured while this happened so he got soaked (earlier in the day, the RTK antenna fell over during a rainstorm).
Oh the best part of the rain though was the beautiful rainbow we got to see! There are a couple of pictures of it. It was absolutely gorgeous. Anyways, after mostly getting things done on Laura Beach (the RTK accuracy wasn’t fantastic, we didn’t GPR the trench quite enough, and no C14 samples) we raced back to the hotel. There we ate lunch, showered, and finished packing. We managed to clean up everything (mostly) and pack everything by 4:30 pm and arrive at the airport at 5 pm. This was a really good thing because the check-in line was SLOW. The airport doesn’t have a an XRAY scanner so they want to open everything. I separated a bit from the group at this point because I needed to check all the equipment I would use by myself and not have it taken back to Boston (it needed to go to LAX).
So there I was in line with 4 large pieces of luggage all at 50 lbs (+- 2 lb) and low and behold some nice baggage guy took pity on me. Even though I was behind the guys (Richard & Chris) who had all of the other 11 pieces of luggage, I got all of my bags checked first. There are times that being a lone female can be very helpful. Anyways, I checked in, paid for the luggage (exorbitant as always) and then paid my exit fee. We then all got to wait about 1.5 hours for United to pass Richard, Steph, and Chris through. Apparently the luggage had to be charged lots more, except in the end it cost the same as when we came out to the Marshall Islands. But it was definitely tense and not fun waiting around for the manager to approve things ect. Luckily all ended well and we made it on the plane. I’ll post more about the plane rides (they were epic!). Hope you enjoy the pictures.
LFP: Rain & Mosquitos
So today was our last day doing fieldwork together as a group and the last day in the Marshall Islands. We woke up pretty early so we could take the RTK and set up the base station at the other end of Majuro Island (all 35 miles away) and then RTK that area (Laura Beach). Chris stayed and packed things while the rest of us went and RTKed, GPRed, and Sampled C14 (like the new verbs?). Unfortunately, the weather decided NOT to cooperate on our last day. We had to get everything done by 1:30 since it took an hour to drive back and then we had to pack everything up that we were using plus shower and our personal gear. Of course, it decided to downpour every hour or so for like 10-15 mins. Now some of our equipment can get wet, some CANNOT get wet (GPR). Luckily, we were able to sneak in some GPR transects (ok 1.5 transects) in between rain systems. Then we left Richard holding up the RTK base antenna really high as we went and drove around getting topo data with the RTK rover. Sadly, it poured while this happened so he got soaked (earlier in the day, the RTK antenna fell over during a rainstorm).
Oh the best part of the rain though was the beautiful rainbow we got to see! There are a couple of pictures of it. It was absolutely gorgeous. Anyways, after mostly getting things done on Laura Beach (the RTK accuracy wasn’t fantastic, we didn’t GPR the trench quite enough, and no C14 samples) we raced back to the hotel. There we ate lunch, showered, and finished packing. We managed to clean up everything (mostly) and pack everything by 4:30 pm and arrive at the airport at 5 pm. This was a really good thing because the check-in line was SLOW. The airport doesn’t have a an XRAY scanner so they want to open everything. I separated a bit from the group at this point because I needed to check all the equipment I would use by myself and not have it taken back to Boston (it needed to go to LAX).
So there I was in line with 4 large pieces of luggage all at 50 lbs (+- 2 lb) and low and behold some nice baggage guy took pity on me. Even though I was behind the guys (Richard & Chris) who had all of the other 11 pieces of luggage, I got all of my bags checked first. There are times that being a lone female can be very helpful. Anyways, I checked in, paid for the luggage (exorbitant as always) and then paid my exit fee. We then all got to wait about 1.5 hours for United to pass Richard, Steph, and Chris through. Apparently the luggage had to be charged lots more, except in the end it cost the same as when we came out to the Marshall Islands. But it was definitely tense and not fun waiting around for the manager to approve things ect. Luckily all ended well and we made it on the plane. I’ll post more about the plane rides (they were epic!). Hope you enjoy the pictures.
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Richard completely soaked while RTKing
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Crazy stormy weather J
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Steph and I sitting out the rain shower
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Setting up the RTK base station at Laura Beach
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Steph’s Birthday Rainbow!
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