I spy something white.


It’s ice.

It’s always ice.



We’re currently avoiding a big storm right off the coast of the peninsula, staying tucked away around the island of Adelaide until the storm passes and we can enter into Marguerite Bay. Usually when a ship is headed to Marguerite Bay, they would sail on the outside of these protected waters, avoiding the tight passages and ice that can completely fill up this part of the Peninsula. Due to the storm, we chose to steam our way through the ice, and around all of the snow covered mountainous islands.

This change of plan happened to bring us even closer to the wildlife of the seventh continent, passing by crabeater, leopard, and fur seals. Watching Minke and Humpback whales surface only dozens of feet from our bow. And noticing a few lone Adelaide penguins floating on large icebergs, safely out of reach of any of the predators swimming nearby.

While the leisure/tourist parts of this cruise have been amazing, giving us indescribable views and relatively calm seas; the scientific parts have not quite been as successful. The CTD we borrowed from Palmer Station is still not up and running, along with some wench/hydraulic issues. This means we’re still bucket sampling, and running our assays with only surface water at each of the three locations we’ve sampled so far.

These issues are no one’s fault, and I’m proud to say my team has taken all of this bad news in stride, ultimately laughing at the comedy of errors we’re found ourselves in. We have people still working on these repairs, so every day there is a new possibility in things running smoothly, but until then, enjoy a few photos I took yesterday afternoon as the ship broke through a sea of floating ice. 


An adelaide penguin on an ice berg, while a few crabeater seals swim below.

Leopard seals napping on the ice, completely unaware of us.

More ice, ice floats, ice bergs.

Crabeater seals on ice floats.

The bow of the LMG completely coated in snow and ice.

The colors of blue in the water surrounding glaciers and icebergs will never get old.




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