Friday, February 20, 2009

Days 27-29

Finally, our work had to be stopped momentarily to dock the ship along the ice shelf (see picture below) near the Halley base for three days, in order to bring them supplies, take their wastes and the people that will not stay there for the austral winter. There are not enough cabins to have our own now, so I had to move into a new cabin which I am sharing with John. We took the opportunity to leave the ship and take a walk on the ice shelf, while the ship and Halley crew were loading and unloading equipment.

We walked from the sea ice in the creek where the ship was docked onto the ice shelf, where a little caboose was set for Halley people operations. The ice shelf is a flat expense of ice for miles and miles around...

It feels good to be able to stretch our legs !

During the walk, we saw a cute Adelie penguin. They are shorter than the Emperor penguins, with blue eyes.

Then he tried to take off to escape from an oncoming snow vehicle, but his wings don't work in the air !...

We also saw an Emperor penguin, who was watching scientists work on the poop deck of the ship. They were setting up the VMP to make repeated casts while the ship was docked, to obtain a time series of dissipation measurements.

Soon lots of friends joined in, to see what these strange human creatures were doing.

Their beautiful feathers were shining in the sun.

Two days have already past since the ship docked along the ice shelf. Tomorrow we are going to visit the Halley base ! And the ship will depart early the next day, for the second part of our work program.

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