Lat - 68'S 06.13
Long - 71'W 10.81
Water Depth - 582m
After a super busy (and muddy) shift for the first 8hrs we were
suddenly all done and headed out to the next site, G....or so we
thought, when one of the head gaskets on the engine failed and we
ended up limping along on one engine until they fixed it. Amazingly
5hrs later they did fix it and at around 11pm last night we arrived
at site G to start surveying. Unfortunately our bad weather followed
us, and increased in size somewhat. We're locked inside, winds
sustained 35knots and gusting to 45knots. So this last shift has been
a book reading, movie watching, game playing, napping watch. Too
bumpy to get my babies out the fridge to photograph either (I now
have 6 babies feeding on plankton and growing strong). Site F didn't
yield many corals at all, but I did get some good anemones from
there, enough numbers to really do some things with. I also got
plenty of water for aragonite analysis, and everyone got enough mud
and other animals to keep all satisfied.
I'm holding out for site G, from this area last time I was here I got
some really good corals (and anemones too), so i'm hopeful of a
reprise......it's hard when I got such a great sample on the first
trawl of the cruise, nothing else really compares to 10lb of corals
in one haul!
We're also really close to the British Antarctic base Rothera too,
we're all still hoping we get a little visit in, but if this weather
continues we might just get skunked. We'll see.......
No comments:
Post a Comment