Yesterday was a day of getting up early with the news that the weather was suitable for flying - beautiful and sunny - you could actually see the mainland and icebergs way out to sea. Of course it's not that simple - the blades need to be attached to the helicopters, then there is some equipment to go ashore as well, and then waiting about in the "Departure Lounge" (which rapidly becomes quite like a real departure lounge, with everyone sitting there with their hand luggage) until your flight is ready to take you.
The actual flight time - once you're in the air - is only about 12 minutes, but by the time you load up, get everyone in, take off, fly there, unpack, and return, then refuel, over an hour has gone by. This time, just after takeoff of the flight before mine, a small amount of fog started to form near the ship. The pilot aborted the flight and returned and within 10 minutes the entire ship was enveloped in thick fog and stayed like that for the rest of the day.
As a result, the first 10 people who flew in, got to camp the night on shore at Commonwealth Bay last night and tonight. Ironically, the weather where they were was beautiful and sunny, so they've been having a lovely time.
I spent the day discussing the minutiae of deep-diving mammal physiology with one of the biologists on board, ocean currents with an oceanographer (including the plastic garbage-collecting capacities of large ocean "gyre"), and the regular arcade patterns often seen in icebergs with the glaciologist.
Over dinner I heard about the giant phasmids of Lord Howe island from the ABC producer who is doing a story on them, then was made aware of the new definition of sea water conductivity by a sea water virus scientist. We may not have access to Google on board, but with so many knowledgeable people on board, usually someone know the answer to any burning issue.
Somewhere in between all that I went out onto the ice for a few hours to video the ice-cricket (the penguins are quite curious but get a bit noisy if they wander onto the pitch and then someone hits the ball and starts running back & forth), and then took some penguin photos. Sometimes they have some disagreements with each other.
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