all done drilling :)

It is bright and sunny at 2am... we're done. 3.17m total depth. After having met all goals, I challenged my guys to believe in their own handiwork... before, when running autonomously, we'd been sitting around the drill site doing other things, but were there in case anything went badly wrong. Tonight... we left the drill absolutely alone and drilling.... the whole human crew left for dinner and a talk by Sathya and socializing with a visiting DeBeers prospecting crew who dropped in by helicopter. The drill automation was on its own, unprotected. It ran on its own for 4 hours, drilled some, discovered a fault and followed its recovery procedure. Everything was as it should have been... team members were nervous, a bit. ;-).

And then we initiated the autonomous drilling sequence remotely, from base camp.... another accomplishment beyond original goals. Then wrapped it up.

There was a front passing... the bright midnight sun made a huge double rainbow over the crater and our drill camp to the south. :) Appropriately, IMO...

ATV ride...

A brief video down into the crater towards the drill site, done with my tiny Casio while driving one-handed ;).

http://www.numenor.org/~gdw/CIMG0106.AVI

Thanks to cyan_blue for hosting.

Signing off for this season on Devon...

HMP7SFU portable Brian out and clear.... headed out in a few moments, should be in Resolute tonight. Most of my team has gone ahead. We drilled to 3.22m and talked to the Chicago Herald-Tribune onsite... weather is beautiful. May swingby Grise Fiord if I'm lucky. :)