Last day on land

 Station lit up by the ship this morning.

First light.

 The last day on station was perfect weather. Calm, clear, beautiful light and ski-able snow.

 I went up the glacier for a si for the last time this season.

 Elephant seals and fur seals hanging out on the beach. 

 Neat cloud bank.

Great end to another great adventure!

LMG Arrival

 The ship with our replacements has arrived!

 Here they are in the harbor lighting up the ice on their final approach.

 Heading out to the bollards to line handle.

 Mid winter is June 20th this year, and is less then a week away now. The sun does not crest the horizon, but it gets close.

 The LMG lights are very bright and its neat to see the color of the water in the dark.

Very nice calm weather for cargo operations. I will be heading north soon!

Mountain Names in the Area

I annotated a photo of the the mountains from on top of the glacier with the names, elevations, distance from Palmer and their first ascents (if I could find information about them on the internet). I used a mountaineering guide book, alpine news sites, commercial mountaineering company sites, nautical maps, and topo maps to pool information to create this. Pretty neat stuff.  

Snow day at work on Amsler Island

At the end of last week we had to go out to a nearby island and pull the data off of a little weather station. This weather station is looking at temperatures above ground and in the moss over several years. After getting dropped off on the far side of the island to do the science work we hiked back across the island to the closer landing site. It was the perfect day for a nice winter wonderland walk.

Lichen in snow.

Lichen in rime.

 It was a perfectly clear and calm day so we took advantage of the half hour that the sun was above the glacier. 

 Station can be seen at the far right of this photo. A snow covered Mount William on the left.

 View from the high point of the island.

Neat bit of ice on the boat ride back to station. 

 More great lighting.

And the sun went back behind the glacier just as we arrived back on station. 

Cheese-its

 This is the highest the sun gets now. In a few weeks it won't even get above the glacier and we will not get direct sunlight (only for a few weeks though).

 I wanted a good cheesey salty snack so I looked up a recipe for some cheese-its. They turned out very good, they did not last long, (I shared them).

The sunrises and set set have been very dramatic and fun to watch. 

Under sea critters

 I had to pull up the tide gauge to take a measurement and found out that I should be cleaning the tide sensor at least once a year because the underwater critters are quick at taking up residence.

 Sorry, you guys can't live here.

 Nice day to be working outside.

 All the weird soft cold water corals.

 Sea spider did not want to be disturbed.

 Moon this morning through the telescope in the galley.

 Frost on the hand rail this morning.

 Fog-bow made an appearance while working on the pier.

 My office with the full moon yesterday morning.

The days are getting shorter, this is at about four o'clock in the afternoon. very beautiful weather this week!

Giant Petrel Chicks

Winter is steady setting in, the sun doesn't come up until I've been at work for a couple hours and it sets at dinner. 

I got to go out with the volunteer birding team that is doing the bird work for the bird science group while they are not here to check on the progress that the Giant Petrel chicks were making. They are almost ready to fledged and are awkwardly loosing all their down.

 Their down kind of smells like dryer sheets, it's weird.

 About one in thirty giant petrels is white. Their down is white as well so this one is a little harder to tell that it is a chick.

 Stretching the wings.

An adult Giant Petrel, these are the largest birds in the petrel family. They are huge, one might even go so far as to call them giant.

 My hand next to one of their foot prints.

 This lady petrel was very curious and walked up to me and stuck her head in my camera lens!