Punta Arenas

Hi everyone. The computer that I am relying on has not been working properly so I was not able to post yesterday. Anyway, we got a weather report for the landing strip at Patriot Hills, Antarctica. The report was good with wind speeds at 18 knots and a temperature of -13 degrees C (about 8 degrees F). We got on all of our cold weather clothes, finished packing our bags, and headed to the airport for the big flight. When we arrived at the airport, the owner of the flight service informed us that we needed to wait for one more weather report to see if the wind speed was still trending downward. The weather report showed an increasing trend in the wind. Since an attempt that gets aborted in the air means a waste of fuel and therefore money, the pilots and owners decided to nix our flight. So....We wait.
Punta Arenas is actually a pretty nice little town. It is the southern most city in Chile and located on the Straights of Magellan. Magellan traveled through these waters on the first circumnavigation of the globe around 1520. Tierra del Fuego is located across the straight from us, so we are not far from cape Horn which is the southern most tip of South America and home of some of the roughest seas in the world. Our weather report comes every few hours so I have been spending my time looking at a few sights and waiting at the hotel for positive news. Mike, one of the climbers in our group, has been walking around trying to find a church where he can light a good luck candle. No news from God yet!
The group dynamic for this trip is much better than could be expected so far. We have ten people from the U.S. and Great Britain that are getting along very well. We spend our dinners together laughing and telling some great stories.
I can not wait to get to the ice and get to work climbing this mountain. Hopefully my next posting will come from my satellite phone on the ice.