This little fella joined us in the boat while we were snorkeling and hung around on the bow for several minutes. The other shot is of Simon after snorkeling. For reasons unknown, the cold water makes some peoples lips puff up. Simon's stayed like this for the next hour.

bergs & boats

more bergs and boats. Enjoy.

bergs!

Last night we cruised around the ice bergs just off station. Spectacular! As always a great variety of shapes and sizes to fasinate and keep the cameras clicking. The highlight was this berg with a jade section. According to the glaciologist on board, the jade ice forms from seawater at high pressures under ice shelfs. Not something you come across everyday.

Ele's at war

The Aurora Australis pulled in to the bay late last night. To greet them two of the locals put on a show of biting and headbutting each other. They soon got tired though and returned to the beach to continue their usual pastimes of farting and sleeping.

boat thief

Tired of swimming for himself this little fella thought he'd steal a boat instead. He crashed on to the floor of the boat after bouncing off the pontoons, inspected the engine and fuel tanks then gave up and jumped overboard.

air adelie

This litte fella mistook us for an ice bergs and suddenly landed in our boat in a rather confused state. A quick look around at the rather large orange clad penguins in the boat and he was off.

Sterechinus newmayeri - the urchin that has been the main focus of our collecting so far.

More images from the last week of boating. Jake snorkeling and the crew cruising near the Sorsdal Glacier.

water & ice

The sea ice has broken up and is now floating around the coast in a miriade of weird shapes and sizes. We've been out boating a lot this week and have been fascinated by the diversity and, in particular, by the many varied subtle shades of blue formed by the underwater sections of the ice. Enjoy.