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Seals and whales and penguins – OH MY!

By Rebecca Gast | May 10, 2019

We spend A LOT of our time working, but there are moments when we get to be tourists.  I mentioned our lovely sunny days down in Marguerite Bay, and for several days in early May we were near Hovgaard Island and the La Mer Channel. The La Mer Channel is also referred to as “Kodak…

Making Lemonade

By Rebecca Gast | May 10, 2019

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade – or at least try to. I know I keep talking about this (and I promise this will be the last time), but when your CTD breaks, and the backup CTD refuses to work properly, how do you collect water for a project based entirely on collecting seawater? …

Ground Hog Day

By Rebecca Gast | May 5, 2019

I started this post on May 2, but … well, science happened!  As Wade has said, “we’re going to make science happen, whether it wants to or not.” It’s now been two weeks since we started our sampling, and up until last this past Tuesday we were collecting samples every day.  Despite the fact that…

REMIXED

By Rebecca Gast | April 28, 2019

Research Examining MIXotrophic Ecology and Diversity – what does that actually mean and why are we interested?  Traditionally, microbial eukaryotes (algae and protists – not bacteria) are considered either phototrophic (use sunlight to grow) or heterotrophic (eat prey to grow).  Mixotrophy refers to an organism’s ability to utilize a combination of these trophic strategies.  We…

World Penguin Day

By Rebecca Gast | April 25, 2019

Or as my colleague Wade calls it, “Take a Leopard Seal to Lunch Day”.  (The image is of a sticker that I bought at Palmer Station – oceanographers can have a warped sense of humor.)  But, since we are in the Antarctic, I should say something about penguins.  They are amusing to watch.  Clumsy on…

Palmer Station Pit Stop

By Rebecca Gast | April 21, 2019

We arrived at Palmer Station this morning (picture above, Happy Easter!), and are currently offloading supplies and fresh food for the station.  The first thing(s) to come off the ship were the tanks of juvenile krill that the Bernard lab group will be studying at Palmer (image below shows one of the large grey tanks…

Cape Shirreff

By Rebecca Gast | April 19, 2019

On Thursday, April 18, we awoke to see land for the first time in several days.  The ship had arrived at Cape Shirreff and it was time for the seal research team to leave us.  They will be spending the next 35-40 days at Shirreff Base on the island while they study leopard seals (we…

The Passage

By Rebecca Gast | April 17, 2019

This blog post title reflects both our actual trip through Drake Passage and how we pass the time during the transit.  First, though, I’d like to introduce the people in our group.  In the picture below, from left to right, are Jean-David Grattepanche (Temple), Wade Jeffrey (University of West Florida), me (Rebecca Gast, WHOI) and…

Big Boots

By Rebecca Gast | April 14, 2019

“When you see somebody putting on his big boots, you can be pretty sure an adventure is going to happen.”  Winnie the Pooh (AA Milne) This adventure actually began a few years ago when my collaborators, Bob Sanders (Temple University) and Wade Jeffrey (University of West Florida), and I developed a project to assess the…