Sunday, March 29, 2020

Torgie post-penguins

If all has gone according to plan so far (I'm typing this nearly a week in advance), today the ship I rode north from Palmer (the NBP) will be reaching Punta Arenas, Chile. As I'm typing this, the world is changing so fast with the Coronavirus crisis that no one knows for sure what will happen then with the 35 or so of us from the NBP who need to head home to the States. But the senior leadership of USAP and NSF are all working on it and will get us home somehow, sometime. And when they do, I'll be able to tell you all about how it happened. Once I have good internet access again, of course.

To continue to keep you entertained in the meantime, some more leftover pictures from Palmer. 

One day on my last week there, I got to go back out to Torgersen Island (the one that had the huge Adelie penguin colony on it all summer until their chicks fledged and they all moved their super-stinky party elsewhere) to help one of our IT guys take down the penguin cam that is set up there each summer for us and the outside world to keep an eye on the progress of the Adelie eggs and then chicks as they grow.

It was a great excuse to get out on the water (I drove the boat! I've gotten to do boat operator training, finally, this summer...and operating a boat has been a totally new experience for me!) and get some exercise trying desperately not to trip or slip on loose rock while carrying expensive camera equipment and solar panels back to the Zodiac.


And then we had a half-hour left before lunch so we did a little island exploring while we were at it. The gorgeousness just never ends!


The mighty, mighty fur seal.


Remains of an Adelie that didn't make it.


My friend C gets swallowed by a bergy-bit.


Friend K looks like a he belongs in a travel catalog for trips to Antarctica!


No comments:

Post a Comment