{"id":279,"date":"2019-05-10T19:24:45","date_gmt":"2019-05-10T23:24:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/staff\/rgast\/?p=279"},"modified":"2019-06-04T14:46:45","modified_gmt":"2019-06-04T18:46:45","slug":"seals-and-whales-and-penguins-oh-my","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/staff\/rgast\/seals-and-whales-and-penguins-oh-my\/","title":{"rendered":"Seals and whales and penguins – OH MY!"},"content":{"rendered":"

We spend A LOT of our time working, but there are moments when we get to be tourists.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

\"\"The La Mer Channel is also referred to as \u201cKodak Canyon\u201d because of the spectacular cliff and glacier scenery.\u00a0 (Cameras used to require film, and one of the companies that made this magical material was named Kodak.)\u00a0 Unfortunately, the day that we went through, it was foggy, which limited our views of the peaks.\u00a0 But it didn\u2019t limit our views of the charismatic megafauna.\u00a0 The penguins were swimming and diving in groups beside the ship, as were seals.\u00a0 Humpback whales also made several appearances during our transit.\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t able to get pictures of them with my camera, but I did get a picture of a mountain that snuck up on us\u2026the part of the ship that you can see is the bridge, which is three levels above the main deck.\u00a0 So yes, that piece of rock is huge!<\/p>\n

Over near Hovgaard Island is a what we thought was a small penguin colony.\u00a0 The divers had several sites that they were sampling near there, and when they finished early in the afternoon, Gina (one of the marine techs onboard) took us for a zodiac ride.\u00a0 Earlier that morning we had looked at the colony from the ship using binoculars, and there weren\u2019t many penguins around.\u00a0 Apparently, they had all been out foraging because as we arrived that afternoon, there were hundreds on shore and dozens more still arriving in the water.\u00a0 The noise!\u00a0 The smell!!\u00a0 The colony was composed of Gentoo penguins.\u00a0 They have been replacing Adelie colonies along the peninsula as changing conditions have reduced suitable habitats.<\/p>\n

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You\u2019ll notice the colors on the ice\/snow as well.\u00a0 The reddish color is a mix of penquin poop and algae, and the green is algae.\u00a0 The colors showed up because it rained the night before, melting the surface snow (temperatures here were about 3C, which is above freezing, although not much).<\/p>\n

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And I promised you a seal\u2026as we came around the point of the island, there were a few fur seals hauled out on the rocks.\u00a0 This one posed nicely.<\/p>\n

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I don\u2019t realize how high above the water we are on the ship until we are out in the zodiac.\u00a0 And it\u2019s difficult to judge distances \u2013 the ship seems very, very far away.<\/p>\n

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Our small size was further emphasized when a humpback whale decided to wander over for a peek at the zodiac.\u00a0 We sat quietly and watched in wonder (and a little fear) as is glided underneath us.\u00a0 Throughout the day they had been active in the area, and Wade managed to photograph several breaching.<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s also been a while since I\u2019ve had the time or the creative energy to draw\/paint, but the divers brought in some benthic diatoms and gave me some of the sample.\u00a0 Diatoms are microscopic algae, and they occur both in the water and on the bottom (in shallow areas).\u00a0 Different types occur in the different areas.\u00a0 This benthic species forms long strands of many individuals.\u00a0 When viewing them in the strand, you are seeing them from the side, like the edge of a coin (first image).\u00a0 The flat side, or valve side, is slightly oval for this diatom, and you can see that in the second microscope image.\u00a0 The genus name is Coccineis<\/em>, and it\u2019s fairly common in this area.<\/p>\n

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I decided to try some art with it, and used its tendency to collect together in hair-like strands to outline my watercolor of a koi fish.\u00a0 The strands are very strong when they are wet and in water, but as they dry out they become brittle, so I don\u2019t think this picture will make it home intact \u2013 if someone had hairspray on the ship I could try fixing the diatoms to the paper, but that\u2019s incredibly unlikely!<\/p>\n

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We spend A LOT of our time working, but there are moments when we get to be tourists.\u00a0 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 \u201cKodak…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":267,"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\/279"}],"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=279"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/staff\/rgast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":285,"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/staff\/rgast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279\/revisions\/285"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/staff\/rgast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/staff\/rgast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/staff\/rgast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.whoi.edu\/staff\/rgast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}