Christmas Dinner and Festivities

Christmas dinner was fantastic, home made gnocchi, pumpkin soup and squash stuffed rolls. 

Lots of desserts made by the community.

Every Christmas we have a gift exchange where you put something on the tree and then you get to choose something under the tree. A friend made this wood planter box and I filled it with knit cacti. 

I embroidered this sheathbill for the gift exchange.

This is another painting I've been working on the last few weeks (not for the gift exchange, just for fun).

Elephant Seal Bath

 Right below my building there is a pond where the station used to pipe in fresh water. Since it no longer has adequate flow it's just a pond now. I often see penguins and other birds floating around in it and cleaning themselves but today I found something much bigger. This juvenile elephant seal was playing and scratching and floating around like happy dog in a bathtub.

 He was there for several hours having a good old time.

 "Hey, whats going on down there?"

 Earlier in the week we had a very photogenic ice berg float up close to station.

Moss aka Mini Worlds

 There is a large variety of mosses and lichens that grow in the region. I do not know their names, but they are quite fun to look at.

 Weird hairy lichens.

 The orange ones look like corals up close.

 Weird cups.

 More coral looking ones.

 The moss is all a bit brown right now, it's been hot and dry for several weeks and if the moss had no snow melt water near it it has become pretty desiccated (nothing to be worried about, these mosses are very resilient.)

 Difficult to find a place to step were you aren't going to trod on a bunch of cool little guys.

 So fuzzy.

 This island has so much moss on it, it's closed to regular foot traffic. I was only allowed to land here because I had to retrieve some data from a weather station that was installed by a group that is studying the peat moss.

 On the boat trip back we picked up some ice.

 This one is almost perfectly clear and so dense that it bobs just below the surface of the water. In official ice observer terms this would be called a growler.

 This one is a cool looking ice berg that has been grounded in this cove for about 6 months. Bergs have to be more that 5 meters above the surface to be called bergs, anything below that is officially a "bergy bit".

 Nice halo above my office telling of a storm coming.

This is same berg as above, just a different side. If you look at it closely you can see the accumulation lines. These are the years of snow accumulation that were compressed over time to make this hunk of ice. You can tell which way was level for this berg for hundreds if not thousands of years. 

Seals

 Here is a just weened elephant seal that came to visit station for a few days.

 Getting in the way of everything, being super cute.

 Leopard seal that floated by on a piece of ice a few weeks ago.

 Nice big yawn.

The smiley-est apex predator.

 Elephant seal bobbing around in the swell.

 Crabby seal taking a sun bath.

Another crabby looking curious. 

And because no post is complete without a beautiful sunset photo.

A Walk at Low Tide

 I went for a walk during one of the lowest tides of the year. This is beached sea ice. The brown is all algae that likes to grow on the undersides of sea ice. The krill like to walk along the bottoms of the ice and eat it.

 Where the rocks drop off. We haven't had the big plankton bloom for the summer season yet so the water is still pretty clear. Want to go swimming?

 Some cool pyrite cube crystal in the rock.

 Find the penguin.

 Red ribbons of sea weeds.

 Another type of sea weed.

 Limpets hiding in a crack. Judging from their size these limpets are about 25 years old.

Where high tide meets the glacier. 

Thanksgiving

 The sheathsbills new favorite hang out spot is on the roof of my office. They can sure make a racket when they are feeling rowdy.

 I climbed up into the dome to see them up close again and they really don't seem to mind at all.

 Thanksgiving day was a perfectly calm and beautiful day. This is as far as the sunsets these days.

 Fresh salad and homemade rolls!

 ALl the classic thanksgiving fixings: green bean casserole, beets, carrots, stuffing, garlic mashed potatoes, gravy.

Two different types of turkey for the meat eating folks cut by one of our hilarious chefs. 

 Desserts made by everyone who wanted to make something.

 A fun little ice burg that has been grounded near station all season. You can see the high tide mark. It broke apart soon after taking this photo.

 Weird triangle hole in a rock.

Another little burg. I love the color of the ice under the water.