We traveled to Costa Rica from Jan 12 - 21, 2019. This trip was very successful. Param and I helped Oscar prepare for absolute gravity measurements. The absolute gravimeter has a mass that is about 70 cm off the ground. So, we needed to get a better number for the free air correction. Typically, the number we used is 0.3086 mGal / m. But, this number is just an approximation. In order to get a better number, we needed to do a " gradient measurement". This required that we take a measurement, with the relative meter, on the ground and then at about a meter high (we measured precisely how high the meter was during our measurements). Then, we need to do a tide correction and then a drift correction. Then we can see if the 0.3086 is a good approximation for this gradient.
We also serviced two seismic stations and installed a new station. One station was in the middle of a rain forest. Luckily, it was not raining on the day we went to service it. Everything with the stations were perfect.
Being in Costa Rica in the winter (in the northern hemisphere) warrants a beach trip, or two, or three, or four (?). As soon as we landed we went to Manual Antonio. The beach there was beautiful and the water was warm. We saw a lot of wild monkeys. During our gravity surveys and seismic station service, we were on the Caribbean coast. We took advantage of this and went on the beach after our work was done for the day. Then, during our final weekend, we journeyed back to the pacific coast to end our trip with another beach weekend. The weather back in Jersey had high temps in the 20s. So, it was nice to be on the beach with temps in the 90s. the drive back to San Jose took approximately 6 hours, even though it was only 90 miles away. The traffic for a decent chunk of the drive did not dissipate.
We finished our trip by watching the total lunar eclipse. This was the first lunar eclipse I had ever seen and it was beautiful.