Monday, October 28, 2013

Day 12 - Another Day in the Pack Ice - Penguins



Another day in the Pack Ice. Following the GPS track we went back north, and are on our way West, exactly as announced in yesterday evenings briefing. Aside from getting more reading done and preparing a checklist and form for our snow pitting a highlights of the day was Yoga and Zumba. Yoop Zumba Zumba Tatera, actually I may have finally learned the step for Salsa, will see in the next Zumba lesson whether I can remember, in any case Yoga is like always very useful for stretching, strengthening as well as soul food.

The second highlight(s) were more photo opportunities with the menu today a close up of an Emperor Penguin who checked out the ship. Apparently first visible in the far distance, our little friend made its well belly down gliding over the ice towards the ship. Stu alerted me to this delight. Getting up on the Helideck we looked for the little bugger on the Starboard side. As we couldn’t see him we joked around that he likely went onto the other side. Just for the shits and giggles we walked to the other side, and guess what? … there he was standing on the port side of the ship, walking up and down and observing, or was it better inspecting this red steel cow? As the ship was moving forward he or was it a she moved nicely into the path, not sure whether the ship thus reversed each time or whether it just was the ice. After a few games the little or better said our Big Fellow, wondered back to the Starboard side, inspecting once more this side of the ship, before losing interest and hopping into one of the many cracks in the ice. A few minutes later I went to the trawl deck of the ship and who as there again?


Our little – sorry Big Friend, inspecting the boat from behind. He had popped out may be 500 m behind the ship and was slowly making its way towards the heck of the ship. As the Aurora was pushing with its thrusters more ice towards the back, the fellow jumped from floe to floe. This went for some time, until some seals caught my interest.  

Picture taking today actually continued until later in the evening when I went up onto the bridge for a last time and took a few pictures outside, as the search lights were illuminating the path of the AA.



No comments:

Post a Comment