Puerto Montt, Chile. We spent a day here on the way down because our plane rerouted from Punta Arenas which had too much fog to land (we were on the descent when they turned us around). A wonderful day of sightseeing! View from my hotel room.
Puerto Montt, and below a military celebration by the water with marching and a band.
Scenic walk by the waterfront.
Puerto Montt's volcano, still quite active.
Palmer Station, art night, with Adina who I wintered with in 2014.
Both the NBP and LMG at the pier in Punta Arenas.
We had some crazy seas in the Drake Passage, both southbound and northbound.
Most of the day was dark at Palmer, a bit of light from 10-2pm. But mostly this.
Recovering fish pots. Pot fishing is always my favorite, but this is the first time I've gotten to do the grappling and recovery part. It's a matter of putting the rope in the block (above and left of my head) and through the pot hauling machine (that Tom is operating) and as it pulls on the string of pots, and one of the pots comes close to the side of the ship, pulling the pot onto deck by hand. Grappled it on the first try!
Cargo operations as seen from Station. If you look closely, you can see we were lifting a shipping container onto deck using a main crane and tag lines.
Beautiful views as always from the Gerlache Straights, close to Palmer.
The aluminum landing craft (this small boat) is what we had to unload all our cargo into for delivery to Palmer Station because the icebergs were so big and proximal to the pier that we couldn't actually dock. So we used the small crane to lower things into that small boat and they ran it to Station, back and forth for two days.
Sorting the catch. We were putting the contents of the Blake fishing trawl net into these plastic bins so that the scientists could see the catch easier and find the small fish they were looking for.
Unique iceberg near Station.
Iceberg and pancake ice.
The glacier at Palmer Station. It receded so much between the last time I was there (last November) and now that we now have a brand new island named Detrich after the scientist we were fishing for.
Sunrise in the Straits of Magellan, last morning before arriving back to Punta Arenas. Every single time it's this golden/red for some magical reason. And every time we have Commerson's dolphins swimming alongside the ship.
Sign and view from atop the glacier at Palmer Station. We hiked up it twice, this time in the daylight and once after work in the complete darkness with headlamps.
The LMG and us three Marine Tech gals standing on the side saying hello as we tried to pull in but couldn't.
We had drillers from New Zealand drilling rock cores on the pier and on Station for data for future construction and repairs. Surprisingly, a lot of granite!
Josephine and I walked these plastic bins full of survival gear to a place on Janus Island. All the islands people can boat to near Palmer Station have survival gear in case they get stranded there.
Me mending a net, one of the things I did a lot of as the others hadn't learned yet. And below is us three sailor ladies or Marine Techs, from this cruise: Josephine, brand new, in the middle and Krista whom I've sailed with on the other ship on the right.
Big fish pic! This was from our first of two fishing trips, a female ice fish, still in shock (they close their mouths when they adjust after being pulled all the way off the bottom of the ocean in our nets to the surface and in the plastic aquarium tanks you see behind me. We had a very successful trip and were so gentle that they had almost no die offs.
The drillers drilling.
The best/most rare pic for last: this is a plunderfish! We only caught one, they are super rare and live only in very deep dark depressions in the waters only off certain regions of the Antarctic. They are characterized by that "probe" on the chin, which is actually a sensory organ. It's a boon to catch these fish because they are only mentioned in books from the 1960's that have pencil sketches of these types of fish, so to actually get photos and biological data on them is exciting stuff.
Had a good trip and happy to be home with Dave in gorgeous Idaho in the middle of summer. Will post pictures soon of some of our recent hikes. Love you all. Happy Fourth of July!!!
