Monday 16 January 2012

Antarctic Voyage 2012 - 16/01/2012 [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

I hope you all enjoyed the many photos I posted earlier. I will try
to continue to do so as long as I have good photos to post.

We were once again blessed with beautiful weather for the majority of
the day, with blue skies and the sun gracing us with their presence.
As such, heli-ops began bright and early, taking the last of those
people to Mawsons Hut for the official ceremony. After some 4 days or
so of waiting, some people were literally on land for an hour and a
half - they went to the ceremony and basically came straight back
again before the weather turned (which it did). It seems fairly
ridiculous to me that so much money has been spent keeping the ship
here just for an hour of speech-reading. Who am I to complain though,
it allowed me to play with the penguins!

With heli-ops occuring for a large part of the day, we were banished
to the confines of the ship as our pen of sea-ice was being used as a
heli-pad. I did manage to get out and play for a short while though,
and saw yet another chinstrap penguin (or was it the same one?), and
also an emperor. I later saw a whale (probably a Minke) from the
heli-deck, and also an albino penguin!! I thought those that pointed
said albino out to me were playing some sort of joke, but when I
looked, there was an albino penguin - instead of black feathers, it
was sort of a creamy colour - it was also being bullied by the other
penguins...Unfortunately I was too slow to change lenses to get a
shot of it. You will all just have to use your imagination instead.

After 3 days of waiting, we also finally got to go out on the water
in the zodiacs. Just before getting aboard, a group of 3 or so whales
were spotted in the distance, so after climbing down a precarious
ladder on the side of the Aurora onto the zodiac, we headed straight
for where we spotted the whales. Unfortunately, there was no sign of
them, but we then got a radio call from the ships captain saying a
whale was spotted near the ships bow. We zoomed (or fanged as the
Aussies say) straight back towards the Aurora, and spotted another
Minke. It didn't want to pose for any photos unfortunately, but
still, a grand total of 5 whales for the day (and the entire voyage)
isn't too bad. I also got to see two more emperors on the edge of the
sea-ice. One was a juvenille, and still had a small amount of
youngster plumage on it's back - the other we think was it's parent.
At the begining of the trip, the weather was pretty fair, so we had
some nice reflections of the icebergs in the glassy water. After
being out about 15 minutes, however, the weather turned and it
started to snow, reducing the visibility. Still, it was great to be
able to head out on the water, and see the Aurora from a distance
amongst the sea-ice. I thought the zodiac trip may help make up for
my lack of standing on the continent, it doesn't really, but was
still an amazing experience.

In other news, I reported yesterday that I hurt my knee playing snow
cricket. Well this morning, I woke up and it was still hurting pretty
badly, forcing a quick trip to the doc. Turns out my knee is swolen,
but worry not. It's nothing serious. This is why I don't do
exercise...

We leave Commonwealth Bay tomorrow, and say goodbye to the VIPs as
they head to Dumont D'Urville, Casey, or McMurdo stations to catch a
flight home. The science therefore begins very soon.

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