We made it!

Short post today, but I just wanted to update and say that we made it safely to Palmyra! We got in yesterday morning, and have been busy getting all of our instruments ready ever since (see next post for more).

The trip to Palmyra is just a few hours from Hawaii. To get there, the only way is either by having your own boat or by taking the plane chartered by the Palmyra Atoll Research Consortium, or PARC. PARC is a sort of 'club' that universities join, and by paying their PARC fee they get a certain number of seats on the plane every year. I'm not too clear on all the details, since Mark has been nice enough to deal with all of that for us, but I do know that the plane to Palmyra is easily the nicest flight I've ever been on. It's a Gulfstream II:

I found out later that the reason why they charter such a nice jet is so that the plane can make it from Hawaii to Palmyra and back without needing to be refueled (and therefore the Palmyra staff doesn't have to maintain giant airplane fuel tanks). But this is one of the types of planes used by the super-rich, as we found out by reading all the onboard magazines. Most flights you get Skymall: this time we got to read about luxury resorts, investment real estate, and the best private planes to buy. (According to the magazine, it was the Gulfstream.)

That meant we had excellent views of the atoll when it first came into view!

It was pretty amazing to actually see this island I've been starting at for so long on Google Earth in person. Then the only thing left was to get used to being quite literally in the middle of the Pacific Ocean!