Today's ice excursion was much more eventful than yesterday's with all kinds of fun things happening. We left for Hutton Cliffs this morning and it took us quite a while to get out since the ice near town is deteriorating so much. It made for a bumpy and slow ride, but once around the point, it was pretty smooth sailing.

We packed up camp pretty quick and Regina, the biologist studying Weddell Seals at the camp, showed us all around. All I have to say is WOW... pretty amazing stuff.

On the way home, we made a quick stop so that I could drop my plankton net a few times and get some samples to play biologist with. This is part of the whole internship deal that got me down to Antarctica in the first place. Actually, I had pretty much given up on doing my research proposal, since Raytheon wasn't really making it very easy for me to get out on the ice; however, the foremen in the carp shop are all pretty great so we just took a little detour on the way home. I probably won't get to sample again, so as far as any real research or correlations go, I don't have much (3 samples from 3 depths: 15 feet, 30 feet and 50) to compare, but it will be fun sneaking into Crary Lab, finding a scope and identifying all the specimens. Luckily I've got an inside connection.

And so, as if seals and plankton weren't enough for one day, we ran into some "problems" on the way back to town, starting with Regina getting pitched off her snowmobile and into a melt pool when she broke through. Luckily it was only about 3 feet deep and not connected to the ocean. After getting herself out and on the "road" again we had to stop because one of our pisten bullys had gone in a little deep and the sled got stuck under the ice. But the real icing on the cake was when Geordan broke through up to his knees while walking towards his stuck sled... it was pretty funny.

No worries though, everyone was safely on top of 10 feet of ice and we all made it back with all parts and people in tact... a little wet of course.

~G