Paulet Island

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These penguins are in the middle of nowhere

Day 13 - March 11 2020

Paulet Island

Iceberg on the way to Paulet Island

Paulet island is where we zodiac and go on land this morning. The water is like glass with just a few ripples, as calm as I’ve ever seen it out here. It is cold, 0°C, so I will be wearing different gloves and a balaclava. The sunrise this morning was beautiful but already above the horizon when I got up. We had been told that the island was volcanic rock and that we might see some cormorants. My group were on land first and will then changeover on the island to zodiac around in the waters. On land we saw the hut where 20 men spent 8 months over winter because their ship was crushed by the ice of the Weddell sea. Only one man died due to a heart condition. The island is now home to Weddell seals, fur seals and cormorants. Annie took photos of all of us individually in front of a blue iceberg – the bluer they are the less air they have in the water crystals. Unfortunately that was one of the photos on my iPhone, so I don't have it. There was also sea ice which is usually flatter and has yellow bits which are the phytoplankton. Phytoplankton is what krill eat. Krill is what nearly everything else eats, they are like little shrimps.


Remnants of the hut, not a very nice place in summer, imagine what winter was like


Ice sheet the phytoplankton grow on/under

 

Our afternoon cruise and landing were cancelled due to rough seas. It was replaced by some talks in the auditorium. When you aren't listening to talks, there is the observation room on the top level which has sweeping 180° views. We had a quick navigation talk with Annie where she explained how to read a map with the latitude & longitude numbers. And one of the Canadian expedition members showed us how to make a few knots. Lindsay does these knots all the time but I've never been able to master them but this guy was very patient and explained it well. There are lots of chairs and couches with lap blankets as it can get cold sitting next to the windows. Sometimes the double doors on either side would have to be locked due to the high winds. There is a gym with treadmills, bikes, dumbbells. Yes I did do 20 mins on the treadmill once during a sea day. You can also watch various movies in your room, unfortunately they don't keep track of where you are up to, which is a pain as you don't always get a two hour window to watch a movie and we would watch them in stages.



Iceberg

Abstract Iceberg

Elephant Iceberg

Cave Iceberg

Large icebergs

Penguins on the iceberg

Cormorants on Paulet Island

Passing an iceberg, looking out from the observation room - side window

Cormorants have blue eyes

Weddell seal scratching

I love the patterns on the Weddell seals. We could only see the seals from the zodiac as they weren't near the landing beach.



Only a handful of penguins amongst the cormorants

I think some men would be jealous of his whiskers




Location: Paulet Island, Antarctica

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