November 8 Ice, Ice, Baby

We’re finally at Palmer Station! We arrived yesterday around 6 in the evening. The weather wasn’t great: it was snowing steadily and the wind was blowing around 30-40kn. We weren’t sure if we would be able to dock, but we made it! The ride down was smooth and full of brash ice. At times it looked like you could just step off the boat and walk on the ice.

Palmer station, ordinarily surrounded by water, currently surrounded by ice.

When we came down last year the area around Palmer was almost clear of ice and the only wildlife to be seen in the area was various species of birds, save for a couple humpbacks in the distance. This year there have been an abundance of seals resting on the ice and posing for pictures.

2 of dozens of crabeater seals that were resting on the ice as we plowed through to Palmer Station.

Even as I was writing this blog Chelsea came in and told me there were a couple of leopard seals out on the ice across from the station. 3 hours later they’re still there and it doesn’t look like they’ll be moving any time soon.

A leopard seal yawning. Pretty much the extent of his activity in the last several hours

Today is all about offloading cargo for the crew and potentially some glacier hiking for some, assuming they’re willing to brave the sustained 50kn winds and freezing rain (not on my personal agenda). We’ll have to do some preparations for starting science stations as well. As soon as the cargo has been moved off the ship we can turn on the cold van, where we’ll be performing titration experiments on krill, salps, chaetognaths, and possibly amphipods at -1°C, the purpose of which will be to determine the animals’ g-values, or their density relative to sea water. For now, the tentative plan is to leave Palmer whenever the weather allows us, steam to station 22, about 11 hours from Palmer, and then after some science head straight over to Cape Shirreff where, weather permitting, we’ll be able to drop off the Cape Shirreffers and their cargo.

Melissa M. (a.k.a. Little Melissa, a.k.a. Munchkin, a.k.a. Muffin)