 |
| Moonrise over the glacier |
We made the front page of www.calpoly.edu today thanks to Teresa Hendrix back on campus. She set up the blog from my emails and then passed it off to me and now she is trying to spread the word for us. Funny how a little idea to let friends and family share my trip to Antarctica has turned into a great outreach experience for everyone. Thanks Teresa.
Well we just got back from a REMUS retrieval that seemed like we were picking it up for the first time. The mission was pretty long today and we were running right on the edge of having the batteries run out, which makes it go directly to the end point. Down here this means that it will run directly into 5 or 6 islands. The wind and waves along with a decent swell made the waters a little rough, which felt like driving a car over coffee table size boulders. We put ourselves between the vehicle and the rocks to make sure it wasn’t going to make a crash landing and then continued to drive in circles trying to figure out which way it was going. Fortunately, the vehicle was still on its path and we figured out what was going on and picked it up. Not our most professional attempt, but we got it back and are now downloading the data.
One of the penguins that had a tag on it went out really far off shore last night so we are waiting to see if the penguins are starting to transition from their inshore foraging to offshore foraging. The glider has been flying offshore also and collecting some great data, which has been helpful in understanding how the water column is changing. I am also getting through the data that we have been collecting, which is nice to finally see the results of what the vehicle has been doing over the past couple of weeks.
Well, the birders just brought a fresh batch of penguin stomach contents into the lab so I am going to sign off get out of this smelly lab.
Good night.
Ian
No comments:
Post a Comment