Sunday October 16, 2011

Well, I didn't do much of anything on Sunday. I slept in late, ate brunch, did laundry and watched a few movies. But don't worry, I was able to get some really cool pictures from my friends who are divers down here. Cecil Shin, Hilary Hudson and Dannie Woodward will be stationed at a field site on the other side of the Ross Sea. While we were all sad to see them leave for the season, we hope to be able to take a day trip out to visit them. Here are some of their pictures when they were diving in the same hole we were fishing out of. The diver wearing the orange dry suit is Dannie and I think she is in most of these pictures.

They wear a huge fleece suit under their dry suits so they can stay a bit warmer, but their lips are still exposed to the water. Dannie told me that it hurts at first, but then your lips just go numb. Sounds a bit uncomfortable to me. Here you can see a good picture of the Ob Tube that I went down into a few days ago. Some later pictures have a diver in the shot and help to provide a scale to understand the size of the tube.

They also took some incredible shots of the magnificent life below the ice.

Here is another "Bernie." Too bad they didn't bring it back for us! You can also see at least three leaches on its body.

At the sea floor, ice was forming in some cool patterns. Here, a starfish has become frozen in the ice. However, the ice at the bottom comes and goes quickly so the starfish probably was able to continue on with its day.

Another shot of Dannie.

I don't know what this is, but I really like it!