An hour on the beach

 I went to the near by Adelie Penguin colony after work and hid behind a rock and tried to take photos of the most awkward part of the Adelie commute: the water to land transition.

 Levitating penguin. 

 The majestic belly flop.

 A good shake.

 A good scratch. 

 Penguins don't like spending much time in the inter tidal zone, they are probably worried about being sitting ducks for leopard seals.

Hippity hoppity.

Dream Island

I hitched a ride with the birders to get out to one of my weather stations 10 miles away that was having issues. On our way out they had to stop to count penguin chicks in largest Adelie colony in the area on Dream Island. While waiting for them to finish their counting I helped the BBC film guy who is working with the birders do some drone footage and held the microphone boom while he did an interview for the next Frozen Planet (or some another BBC production in the future).  I also took a bunch of photos because Dream Island is a dreamy place to take photos.

Adelie Penguin.

Fur seal not quite sure if he likes having us on his island.

Baby fur seal!! Fur seal's rarely have their pups outside of large colonies so this is quite special to see.

 The chicks are molting out of their gross poo covered down.

 So much poop.

 "Look at my great pile of poops rocks! I built this! With my mouth!"

 Nice and clean, fresh out of the water. Time to trip and fall over into some poop puddles.

Neat mosses and colorful lichens. 

Sea Creatures

 The divers brought up some  interesting sea creatures for a little touch tank exhibit for one of the cruise ship visits.

 Sea urchin!

I'm not 100% sure on the names of things but they are fun to look at.

GSAR Training

 This month for Glacier Search and Rescue training we inspected in the glacier reminent on Pi Island (a newly exposed island across the Harbor from Palmer) to be sure that it was safe for people to be walking around on.

 This is the glacier in the backyard. This piece of rock melted out last season, it's much more exposed this year.

We walked around the island a found a nice wall to repel down and climb back up for some climbing and anchor setting practice.

Big pile of elephant seals watched our progress up and down the wall. 

Zaandam Cruise Ship Visit

A few times a season we get larger cruise ships in the area. We zodiac out to the them and give a two science out reach talks and question answer sessions. The ship also to cruising around in some beautiful areas that we normally don't get to see from station. The black line above is the route we took on this excursion. It was a beautiful day with some very dynamic light and clouds. 

 Huge arch berg!!!

There is a tall ship going through the LeMaire Channel. It was too icy for the larger vessel to get though this channel.

 Wider view of the channel. The little gap on the right hand side is a beautiful channel that I have still have not gone through on a good day yet.

 Renard Island. We can see this one from station, at a different angle.

 Adelie penguins on a berg for scale.

This is Mount Francis, the tallest peak on Anvers island where Palmer is located. Francis is just over 9000 feet high. 

Early January Happenings

 We've had several smaller yachts come to visit us. There were three guy sailing this small vessel across the Drake so they spend a day in our protected inlet prepping their vessel for the open ocean.

 I got to out to the Joubins (ten miles away). To help a new science group install a power modal and weather station to support their radar project which monitors sea state and surface currents around Palmer. It was a very rainy and productive day out in the cold.

Here is a typical dinner meal here at Palmer. It was Indian food night, super tasty!

The Whales are Back

 The sea ice stayed later in to the season this year which caused a late plankton bloom and a delay the of the whales returning. Humpback whales don't like swimming in ice.

Last week I counted several groups of humpbacks passing through the area. I went out to see them the next chance that I had. If you can help it you don't want to be down wind from a humpbacks blow, they have very fishy breath.

 This whale is special because it has white sides and a white belly. The whale scientist's are always trying to get a picture of it's tail for their whale identification archive because it's an interesting animal.

 Their where whale all around, feeding and slowly passing through.

I got nine individual flukes for the whale identification archive I will have to wait and see when they have been processed by the whale group if any of them have been in the area before or if these are new sightings. Here is the fluke of the white whale: