ROV and penguin encounters

We spent our last two days back up at Evans and working hard to get as many samples of different kinds as possible. It was another wonderful trip.

We don't always get to dive out of the comfort of nice big dive locker but are living pretty good life with our dive tomato. This hut is on skis and is light enough that we can tow it around. The hole in the bottom we can dive through and then at night we hang our drysuits as you see to make sure that the feet are not totally frozen for the second day of diving. We then go camp in tents, we can also get this structure pretty hot with the heater on the far side.

We are working with a small ROV that the Kiwi scientists are very adept at using. That means they go find the site and then the ROV leads us to it. It can survey in a day what would take divers a long time and it has been incredibly helpful to us. The shot at the top of the page is us working with it to collect samples from the seep it found.

Just after our dive, we had some more visitors. They hung around for a long time to the point where we just had to wander away and get back to the science. We never approach birds and mammals here because of the Antarctic Treaty. However, they haven't read it so just come right over to do what they want around the camp.

Another just amazing day in this windy and cold, but beautiful place.