Clare, Guest Scientist
What a wonderful Antarctic day onboard the Ocean Tramp! We awoke in Port Lockroy harbour after an evening run over to the heritage site last night, then cast off our mooring and set sail North. As we cruised through the Neumayer Channel, the sun fought valiantly to shine through the clouds, making the icebergs sparkle if you caught them at the right moments. We landed at Spigot Peak in the mountainous Orne Harbour in the late morning. After huffing and puffing our way up and extremely steep, snowy slope, we enjoyed views of the harbour and of the adventurous chinstraps penguins who made their nests high up on the ride. As the scientist onboard, I flew the drone to monitor the chinstrap penguin rookeries and took many pictures in order to count the number of nests when I am back home in the lab.
Over a delicious lunch of corn and vegetable soup made by chef Leandro (aka employee of the month, aka most popular man on board), sailor Laura introduced us to the program Happy Whale. This information on the citizen science program we will be participating in, which involves taking identifiable pictures of marine mammals, came at the perfect time. As we sailed into Wilhelmina Bay, we were greeting by 6 humpback whales who were feeding and flashing us their tails!
After a relaxing afternoon of whale watching, we sailed up to Enterprise Island and tied off on the Governoren, a whaling ship that sunk here in 1915 (which we took bets on the year, and Oli and Mo won) and will serve as our mooring for the night. We are expecting a bit of wind and snow our way tomorrow, so will likely continue sheltering in this funky little spot for another day or so.
I am feeling grateful both for all of the amazing views and wildlife we’ve seen so far, and for the wonderful group of people we have here aboard the Ocean Tramp.
Buenos Días!
Clare Flynn
