In the ice!

64° 57 S, 64° 25 W

-2.1 °C (28°F)

Science is in full swing on the Nathaniel B. Palmer. I’ll tell more about that later, but first some scenery! For the past two days we have been surrounded by sea ice, which makes a for beautiful ice scape. Even though the weather is overcast, the reflection makes everything very light. The roundish ice floes are called “pancake ice” and the structures are very cool to look at. When we go through it feels a bit like sailing through butter as the ice is pretty slushy. The bottom of the ice floes are brownish from the ice algae that grow there. They grow inside the ice and benefit from the little bit of light that shines through the ice and take up nutrients from the water below. Our wake through the white sea ice is brownish from the ice algae in the overturned ice floes, and we look back on the “yellow brick road” that brought us where we are.

Within the sea ice there are sometimes small icebergs, that are remnants of bigger icebergs. These icebergs have been floating around for sometimes a number of years, and have been battered by waves and weather. These small bergs still look very different from the sea ice around it.

On the ice floes we sometimes see seals that look very confused as we show up in their white world with our big orange boat. They are mainly Weddell seals, but we also saw a leopard seal. Those are pretty ferocious creatures and Shackleton wrote about being scared that his ponies would be eaten by the leopard seals. We haven’t seen many penguins yet, it may be too early.

My email on board is: Annecarlijn.Alderkamp.Guest@nbp.usap.gov
Here you can track our location: http://www.sailwx.info/shiptrack/shipposition.phtml?call=WBP3210

In the ice

Find the lonely seal

Pan cake ice