Martinique

I arrived in Martinique this afternoon and my first thought was that it is really really HOT.  It is hot, and humid, and sticky, and sweaty.  This will take some getting used to.  But, I suppose that is what one should expect from a tropical location.  Many of my other expectations were met; mountains topped with puffy white clouds, tropical looking plants, lizards, and French.  The view from the plane as we landed was beautiful - I could even see the sailboats and wind surfers in the bay.  The bed and breakfast we are staying at is homey, and the caretaker is very kind.  While not all the rooms have toilet seats, they do have AC and internet.  Not a bad trade if you ask me.  Anyway, Dan and Rob are supposed to arrive any minute now, and Justin will take a ferry over from Dominica tomorrow.  Then we'll have the full crew here.

Sailboats and Wind Surfers (view from the airplane)

Ron will take a test flight with the Wyoming staff tomorrow to check the instruments one last time and make sure they don't overheat in the tropical sun.  The rest of us will hopefully do some exploring and make sure everything is ready to go for Monday which is the first potential flight day.  The office that we will be using is actually a conference room in the Met Office at the airport.  It has plenty of table space, and will be close to the Met Office staff to hopefully allow for some interaction.  Not too many people were in when we stopped by earlier given that it is Saturday, but hopefully we'll meet them Monday.

Fort de France (view from the airplane)

Justin finally had some success with the netcams on Dominica, the twice-daily soundings from Guadeloupe began today, and the data from previous test flights look correct.  Couldn't ask for a better start to DOMEX.