Antarctica (el fin)

Two and a half weeks home, time to get up the one last post of my trip.
Back to Cape Shirreff, here are some photos of the Southern fur seals. They were laying all around the camp and chasing each other up and down the hills. A group of pups near the water kept busy playing and chasing eachother around the rocks. A few of the pups were very curious and came right up to Amy to check her out.The elephant seal below couldn't be bothered by all the activity, she barely opened her eyes as we hauled boxes past her up to the camp.


These two chinstrap penguins were an entertaining pair. They took turns leading eachother around in circles and zig-zags for the duration of our time on shore. See the video below.
Wet baby fur seal. They are cute, right up until they bite you. No one suffered a bite while we were there, but we did hear a few horror stories. Moral is, watch out for the cute ones.


I find penguins to be endlessly entertaining, on land or in the water. I love the way they have to hop over every little rock because their legs are too short to step over the rocks, makes me chuckle everytime.
Besides all the cool wildlife, there is also some spectacular landscapes and large amounts of ice.
First tabular icebergs we saw. They are incredibly large, and very beautiful. I couldn't get enough of them.Joelle making sure you notice the LARGE hunk-o ice in the background. photo by Kristen A.This one had trapped its own cloud. last two photos by Mariaphoto by MariaWe had some pretty nice island views throughout the cruise, but it was really enjoyable the last few days when the clouds lifted and we could see the tops of the ridges.
Joel in the black downy, Kim has the lolly pop, Tony in green, and Dug in the back with the red coat. This isn't everyone, but you can see it was a fun group. photo by MariaHere we are hanging out, during a bad weather day I think. As you may have noticed this is the intelligence center. NO DRINKS ON THE TABLES! photo by KristenAmy and I getting ready to go to shore at Copa. photo by Kristen
There are many more photos, as it was a wonderful trip and we saw many wonderful things. If you want to see more be sure to ask next time you come to visit us.

Antarctica (part 2)

It took us 2.5 days to get from Punta Arenas to the South Shetland Islands. Crossing the Drake we had sunny days and calm seas. Our first order of business was to re-supply two field camps. One is located on King George Island and the other is on Livingston Island. Both of these field camps are part of the AMLR program doing research on Antarctic predators, penguins and fur seals. Researchers had been at the field camps since Oct. When we arrived in Jan it was the first time they gotten fresh supplies. They were very happy to see us.
Copacabana on King George Island (aka Copa)The field camp is on the beach just to the right of the phallic rock. Those of you that have been kayaking with True North should also be able to pick out "Southern Elephant rock". The beach between Copa and the glacier is all penguin colony. On the zodiac ride from the boat to the beach we were escorted by many porpoising penguins. I was impressed with their speed in the water, and laughed a lot to see them swimming about doing what penguins do.The Jacobs ladder.
I personally loved getting in and out of the zodiac, I should add that I never had to do it in angry seas. When getting in or out you had to time it with the swell. For example on the way down the people before you would tell you which rung to stop on, even if it was 6ft above the zodiac, then you waited. When the swell brought the zodiac to your feet you stepped off, but go quick because the swell is about to fall again. As I said, it was good fun.A closer look at Copa. photos by Joelle SweeneyCopa from above. To the left is the outer edge of the Gentoo penguin colony. I am standing with Kristen Green, another MLML student who has been at Copa since Oct. It was great to see her and all that she has been doing.
This is what 3 months of produce for three people looks like. The boxes above and below the last shelves also are full of produce.
It didn't take us too long to haul all the supplies up the beach and unpack everything. Then we got to explore and the kind folks at Copa made us a fabulous lunch.Another look at the penguin colony next to buildings, they are mostly Gentoos.
Penguins every where! And there are fewer now than there were a few months ago, the chicks are getting all grown up and their parents have started leaving them. photo by Joelle SweeneyThis photo is also by Joelle, unfortunately my camera battery died shortly after landing on the beach. Big thanks to eveyone for sharing their photos and letting me take pictures with their cameras.
Adelie penguin colonies above Copa. You can tell it is an Adelie colony by the red color of the ground around the colony. The color comes from their poop, they eat krill and it shows. Earlier in the season the colony was as large as the outline in red.You have to forgive me, I don't remember all the names of the folks in the back ground, we met a lot that day, but the two in the front are Jasmine and Joelle.Adelie Penguin, photo by Kim Dietrich. Check out those fluffy chicks.Adelie feet! photo by Kim Dietrich.The view from the main building at Copa. Penguins don't really know what to do when they get to the bridge. Some will walk across it, some get in the water and swim across. A few start to cross it then seem to panic and falter at the edge "should I jump in the water!?!". It is all very entertaining to the human observer. photo by Joelle SweeneyMe, Kristen, and Joelle enjoying the sunshine and watching Adelie penguins.Close up of an Adelie.Life in Antarctica is ruff. After leaving Copa we did a zodiac tour of the bay, stopping at this glacial spit for a rest.Time to head back to the Yuzmo. Joelle is happy with the thought of hot chocolate in her near future.
The next day we stopped at Cape Shirreff on Livingston Island. They mostly study fur seals at Shirreff, but also have on-going studies of Leopard seals, elephant seals, and the local penguin colonies. Shirreff isnt as green as Copa, as you can see.
We didnt have time to explore here, there was a lot more gear to unload. Lucky for us there are fur seals all over the place between where the boat lands and the camp. I'll get some of those pics up soon this post is long enough.

Antarctica (part 1)

Token penguin on top of an iceberg.
The boat in the background was my home for 26 days, the Yuzhmorgeologiya or Yuzmo as we fondly referred to it. It is 105 meters, by far the biggest ship I have worked on. There were 63 of us on board and not all of the bunks were filled.
What was I doing in Antarctica?
I got to participate in the Antarctic Marine Living Resource (AMLR) Program's annual krill survey. I was part of the zooplankton team. We had 101 stations to sample during the survey, two were dropped due to weather. Sampling was done around the clock. I had the night shift, which I actually really enjoyed. At night zooplankton migrate closer to the surface so the catch could be more diverse than during the day, plus I was always awake for sunrise and sunset which was great when it wasn't overcast.
The photo below is a regular size petri dish with a variety of common critters that we saw.
Some of the things we caught as seen under the microscope.....
This is a siphonophore. photo by Maria Paz Andrade Martinez. They form chains and are something like firm jello to touch.
An amphipod, they have shrimp like body armor, sort of the insects of the sea. The petri dish photo above has several other species of amphipod in it (Vibrilia sp., Themisto sp.). We identified this one as Gnathiphimedia sexdentata with the guide books we had, some are going to be sent to an expert to confim the id. We only caught it in one haul, but there were many of them.
Chaetognath! These guys are predators, this photo only shows its head and a small part of the body. Their bodies are perfectly clear and their jaws are huge. photo by Maria Paz Andrade MartinezCheck out those fangs, light brown, and all the jaw structure. I am very happy to be larger than they are. photo by Ryan Driscoll
Baby squid. I know you are all thinking, "that is the cutest cephalopod I have ever seen". photo by Maria Paz Andrade Martinez
photo by Maria Paz Andrade Martinez
This is a copepod and a big one at that. Most of them don't have as much color as this one.
This year turned out to be an odd year for zooplankton, according to those that know about these sorts of things. There were a lot of salps. Salps are another gelatinous animal that forms chains and filter sea water. The red dot is the nucleus the rest of the body is clear. Are you catching the theme?We caught a lot of them in the net, see below.
Tony is happily sorting through all the salps to look for any krill hiding among them. Thanks Tony! This was the largest catch we had over the whole survey. I am thankful for subsampling.Jasmine, Joelle, and Nicolas preparing to eat a salp.
I joined the International Salp Suckers Society. They are salty, and really cold neither of which should have come as a surprise. But the cold part really got me. I could feel it sliding down my throat and then it took a while for my throat to warm up again.
The net we use is shown below. The mesh is really fine to capture all the little critters. On the front is the sled that helps drive the net down. There is a flow meter attached to measure the amount of water filtered.
From time to time we would get a myctophid (small fish that migrate up and down following isolumes, light levels, and have many photophores). We also caught larval fish my two favorites are shown below. The first is an ice fish. The pectoral fins are so large they have the look of a dragon:This next photo is just to show how clear the body tissue is, you can see the back of its eye from the bottom of the jaw.This is a Harpagifer sp. larvae. I think they are pretty cute, big blue eyes and lots of yellow and black pigment spots.
Every once in a while we would catch some krill.Krill are very similar to shrimp in look. They are the primary food source for many of the predators in Antarctica, whales, seals, penguins. Joelle and I also discovered that they are good for short range water fights. All those legs trap water, so when you pick them up and they continue to try to swim away = instant water flinger. It is important to keep yourself entertained as you sort through hauls.
More later