Back to Palmer

February 6-8 2019 (Note: this is #28 in a series of posts describing my NSF-sponsored fieldwork in Antarctica aboard the Laurence M. Gould)

The members of the zooplankton group, hanging out at Palmer Station. We’re each “channeling” our favorite zooplankton species. Photo by Srishti Dasarathy.

We’re making our long journey home and were able to stop off in Palmer Station for a couple of days. This is a chance to pick up samples, drop off bits of equipment, and exchange passengers. We rinsed off gear, logged our samples and started packing up the lab. I got a chance to do one more polar plunge, to hike back up the glacier, and to finally see a leopard seal (from a safe distance). It was fun to meet up with the Palmer Station residents, particularly the people we had dropped off about a month ago

We had nice calm waters today, but the swell is starting to pick up as we get closer to the Drake Passage. The science is pretty much done now…we’re down to organizing cargo logistics and lots of travel. I’ll end this cruise blog here and go back to monthly(ish) posts for the log. It will take a little while to get the samples from this trip, and longer to process them. But stay tuned, you’ll be hearing more about this project!