{"id":193,"date":"2019-04-19T20:31:58","date_gmt":"2019-04-20T00:31:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/staff\/rgast\/?p=193"},"modified":"2019-06-04T14:47:37","modified_gmt":"2019-06-04T18:47:37","slug":"cape-shirreff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/staff\/rgast\/cape-shirreff\/","title":{"rendered":"Cape Shirreff"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"On Thursday, April 18, we awoke to see land for the first time in several days.\u00a0 The ship had arrived at Cape Shirreff and it was time for the seal research team to leave us.\u00a0 They will be spending the next 35-40 days at Shirreff Base on the island while they study leopard seals (we will pick them up on our way back, we promise!).\u00a0 You can see the huts of the base towards the left of the picture below.\u00a0 In addition to tagging the seals with electronic trackers to determine where they hunt for food and how long they swim\/dive, they take measurements of the animal\u2019s weight, length, girth, and respiration, and take samples of blood, saliva and poop.\u00a0 All of this is to help them learn about how these seals survive in the Antarctic.\u00a0 There is really very little known about leopard seals, despite their importance as a top predator in the Antarctic marine ecosystem.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

It\u2019s too shallow near the island for the ship, and there isn\u2019t a pier, so the supplies for the researchers are ferried to the beach by zodiac.\u00a0 This is a huge amount of work, and it requires a team effort by virtually everyone onboard.\u00a0 Some stayed on the ship to pack supplies into cargo nets that were then placed into the zodiacs using cranes.\u00a0 Others traveled (via zodiac) to the beach where we helped offload the supplies.\u00a0 The ship\u2019s deck crew and technicians operated the cranes and the zodiacs, making sure that supplies and people made it safely off and on the ship.<\/p>\n

Getting into the zodiac requires climbing down the side of the ship using a Jacob\u2019s ladder.\u00a0 It\u2019s a rope ladder with wooden steps, and it\u2019s flexible, which makes it a challenge to use even in good weather.\u00a0 Climbing it while wearing many layers of clothing, including the big boots<\/em> and a very bulky flotation coat, adds another level of difficulty.\u00a0 But, after several days on the ship, we were all ready for the challenge.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The opportunity to see a bit of the island and the camp was really special because it is a protected area and requires permitting to enter.\u00a0 In the image on the left above, you can see the chain of people bringing supplies up the beach, as well as the zodiac and then the Gould, in the distance.\u00a0 There are penguin breeding colonies (not near where we were) as well as other birds, and it\u2019s home to a large number of Antarctic fur seals. It\u2019s very rocky, and there is a lot of moss, although it\u2019s covered in snow right now.\u00a0 There were many whale bones in the area, mostly smaller vertebrae and ribs.\u00a0 A few fur seals met us as we landed on the beach \u2013 they stuck around to watch what we were doing (see below), and occasionally rolled around to scratch themselves.\u00a0 We saw only one penguin, a gentoo, while we were unloading.\u00a0 It was also possible to hear the occasional boom of the nearby Urdoviza glacier as a piece broke off.\u00a0 In the picture of the glacier you can see dark lines within the ice.\u00a0 This is volcanic ash from previous eruptions in the area.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

It was an exciting and physically demanding morning \u2013 we started at 8 am and finished around 11:30.\u00a0 Then it was time to head for the Gerlache Strait where the krill researchers were going to fish for \u2026 krill.\u00a0 Juvenile krill for their experiments at Palmer Station.\u00a0 I\u2019ll tell you more about those next time, but if you are following the ship\u2019s track using AIS or sailwx, you may have noticed that since last night it looks like we are pretty much in one place.\u00a0 We are – sort of.\u00a0 The links to the marine traffic sites are below.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.sailwx.info\/shiptrack\/shipposition.phtml?call=WCX7445<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.marinetraffic.com\/en\/ais\/details\/ships\/shipid:454309\/mmsi:368138000\/imo:9137337\/vessel:LAURENCE_M_GOULD<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Thursday, April 18, we awoke to see land for the first time in several days.\u00a0 The ship had arrived at Cape Shirreff and it was time for the seal research team to leave us.\u00a0 They will be spending the next 35-40 days at Shirreff Base on the island while they study leopard seals (we…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":194,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/staff\/rgast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/staff\/rgast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/staff\/rgast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/staff\/rgast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/staff\/rgast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/staff\/rgast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":206,"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/staff\/rgast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193\/revisions\/206"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/staff\/rgast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/staff\/rgast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/staff\/rgast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/staff\/rgast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}