Humble Island

Yet another beautiful island visit, this time to Humble Island, where the wildlife of Antarctica clearly enjoys hanging out.

Some elephant seals lounge on the beach as a bergy-bit floats by the in the background....

Adelie fledglings contemplate making the leap into the great blue while another ellie motions them encouragingly toward the shore....

And giant petrels galore! They are GORGEOUS birds....

And their chicks are too cute!

Just in the past couple weeks, the area around Palmer has been TOTALLY overrun with fur seals. I'm not sure if they look more like dogs or rats, but they're very entertaining to watch, and they're real ornery about their personal space--they raise a real ruckus of barking if you get too close.

Backyard jaunt

Thanks to K.N., Antarctic picture-taker extraordinaire, for these photos. We set out after dinner one evening in the warmth of early February for a jaunt around the "backyard"--the area between Palmer Station and the edge of our quickly-receding Anvers Island glacier (the Marr Piedmont). LOTS of melt happening. Me watching waterfalls:

An Adelie watching the water:

As our four-hour walk-about progressed, a couple other station-mates found us in the backyard and joined the party. I love this shot K.N. got of the other three of us looking out over Arthur Harbor. (I'm the one on the lowest rock.)

K.N. even had up-close-and-personal time with a Weddell seal who was super curious about her presence on the shore of Hero Inlet.

So amazing to live in a place where this kind of scenery and wildlife is right there for the viewing whenever we want (and the weather makes it appealing to go outside).

Breaker Island

Another new island visit for me! One Sunday a few weeks ago I got dropped off at Breaker Island and had a few hours to wander around this little rocky world by myself. Such an amazing feeling, to have the sense of being so alone in such a remote corner of the planet. And sooooo beautiful. I may or may not have been taking a nap, tucked into a rock formation shaped eerily like a reclining chair, when I got the radio call asking if I was ready to be picked up....

More Palmer beauty

Just another batch of random pics of this gorgeousness around here lately!

Pi Island, again

I certainly haven't been to all the islands near Palmer that we're allowed to land on and walk around. But I've been out in rec boats enough now to have made repeat visits to a couple of them. One nice return visit was to Pi Island, on kind of a gloomy day when we didn't want to go too far out in case it started pouring rain.

On the way we stopped and said hello to some seals. (As promised before, I am terrible at ID-ing and am not sure if these are crabeaters but I think they are.)

It was lovely to see, again, the striking olivine deposits in the rock of Pi Island, made even more vibrant green by the drizzling rain.

Since my first visit a couple months ago, the ice has melted so much more that this time we could get around the whole island, and did.

One of the krill researchers even found a dead krill on the rocky beach.

A bunch of elephant seals (a bit easier for me to ID than the others) were hanging out and putting on a show for us.

And this time we even climbed up onto the glacial remnant that tops Pi Island. Not sure how many years any of this ice will remain, so have to enjoy it while we can.

All of it! Oh, Antarctica....

Estonia

When the Estonians were here on their yacht a good month ago, now, they were maybe supposed to have had their president with them, but they didn't. But they liked Palmer enough that later when she flew in to join the expedition for a little while, they came back to bring her here with them.

So Palmer was visited for the first time by a head of state, and I got to meet the president of Estonia! She was very lovely and personable.

She's in the bright turquoise shirt and overalls. Such a cool experience!

Fur seals are here!

I'm still totally incompetent at telling apart the various types of seals we've seen down here so far this year (Weddells, elephants, leopards, and crabeaters)--like, comically incompetent--but everyone has been promising me that once the fur seals start showing up, I'll totally be able to identify them.

And they were right! They arrived late this year but have arrived with a bang. Suddenly they're everywhere. And everyone was right: the fur seals look more like sea lions and like to push themselves up on their front flippers so they look like dogs sitting at attention. Whereas the other seals all just laze about like big lumps. (Sure, the leps will eat you if it's convenient for them, but that's not an identifying characteristic when they're asleep on a bergie-bit, which is how I usually see them.)

I appreciate the distinctive behavior, fur seals. Keep it up!

Me at a distance

Simple post today. Just a photo from CL (thank you!) of me in the foreground and the grandness of the Antarctic Peninsula. This was at the height of summer, and even as I post it now, it is starting to feel like the summer is starting its slow decline toward Antarctic autumn. But wow, we got some glorious days this season.

Trip (eventually) to Point 8

Got to take a lovely rec boating trip on a weekday evening a couple weeks ago. A group of about five of us set out hoping to land and explore on foot around a couple of islands most of us hadn't been to yet (Lipps and Delaca). But the seas a bit away from station were WAY more swelly than they were on our little corner of rocks, and it didn't seem like we could easily make a safe landing and we had to settle for circumnavigating both islands and just enjoying the view. Which was great in its own way.

Then we zoomed over to a different area (along the way passing what is left of the Old Faithful iceberg, pictured in a previous post, which turtled a couple weeks ago so looks unrecognizable)...

...and eventually landed at an area called Point 8. Some very watchful elephant seals were guarding the rocks we landed on but graciously allowed us to pass.

And we had a BEAUTIFUL walk to a bunch of viewpoints I hadn't seen before.

One of those nights when all I can think is how lucky I am to be here!

Night in the Rec Hut

I've been really lazy about going out to the Rec Hut, this lovely little structure built just out of sight of the station, because I (SOOOOO LUCKILY) have not had a roommate all season. And the purpose of the Rec Hut is mostly for sleeping out in the backyard without having to set up a tent. I think if I had a roommate I'd be out there on a regular basis. But I had to try it nonetheless, and I ended up having a beautiful evening for it!

The hut is super cozy...looks like a little troll abode and is just big enough to sit up in and put down some sleeping mats and a sleeping bag.

It's not heated, of course, but it's sooooo worth bundling up and enjoying the experience; I mean, this is the view out the window before I closed the drapes and went to sleep. WOW!

On the advice of a seasoned Rec Hutter, I made some coffee and brought it out in a good thermos when I went out there in the evening, and sure enough, when I woke up in the morning and opened the curtains to face the day, the coffee was still hot! Heaven.

I'll be back...