Camping Cape Evans Experience

To round out our field season we did two overnight camping trips to Cape Evans. We went to collaborate with Andrew's previous student Dr. Sarah Seabrook and her team through the New Zealand Scott Base.

While the pancake ice and icebergs were beautiful, this is the first time Cape Evans has had open water this close during this part of the season; a reminder of our changing climate.

While we've been diving out of dive holes this year, at the sea ice edge we had to get creative. We spent hours sawing, chainsawing and ice picking a staircase down to the water edge and a hole to recover the kiwi lander.

The local Adelie penguin colony was very interested in our work, checking out our pop up dive tent, tripod and recovery lines for the lander. We do stop science to take pictures and hangout with the penguins, at least for a little bit.

One was particularly interested in our chainsaw, but he didn't have the proper training or PPE so we told him no. The chainsaw was also turned off and cooled for the record.

As divers we were there to support cleaning the lander, returning it to the shore for the kiwis and redeploying it after switching out their instruments for another year of sampling. We also took some opportunistic samples to study the microbial and animal communities surrounding the methane seeps here. Here Alex Brett, Andrew Thurber, and Steve Rupp get ready to dive.

I thought it was quite cool seeing the instrumentation used to study these seeps from sensors on a lander, lift bags and dry suit SCUBA divers, to even a small Remote Operated Vehicle (ROV) named Luna. Science in the 21st century is pretty awesome.

Overall I'd say it was a highlight of the season and the most memorable camping trip I've had. From waking up to an iceberg in front of my tent to penguins running through camp with home cooked meals, it certainly felt like a dream.

The Finer Things

When looking closely one can see all sorts of interesting interactions. We got to dive at a site that I have not been at for many years. Pearse's Casing (named after John Pearse -who was an early invertebrate ecologist here) used to have a large structure on the seafloor, but alas it has collapsed over the years. However, there is still exciting things to see there. For example, the gooseneck barnacles that are hitching a ride on a seaspider (as shown above). You can see the Cirri (legs used for filter feeding) coming out of a couple of their bodies. Always strange to think that barnacles are crustaceans, not something else.

While I often think of Antarctica as an Echinoderm dominated place, there really are a whole lot of molluscs as well. Like the snail above.

Or this snail, wandering through a field of cnidarians (octocorals) as well as lots of diatoms and hydroids.

But most people's favorite snail form, are nudibranchs are there are numerous cool looking ones here.

I think this one, with the frosted tips, is probably my favorite. So when looking at the small scale, lots of fine scale detail to be lost in, even in a landscape of amazing visibility and ice.

Plume Incoming and a landmark dive.

Every year the dive season starts as soon as we can get here after winter, until a large plankton bloom gets swept under the ice and the visibility drops to the point where we have to stop diving. This always happens around Dec. 10 - but this year it came early.

We thankfully got a brief reprieve from the plankton but the visibility dropped from 100s of feet to much less than that overnight (like the photo above - still good vis but not AMAZING). This does impact our diving and each day we evaluate the situation to make sure we can continue to work.

In some ways it is actually kinda nice - more green hues instead of blue. But it is more ominous than anything else. Always the way things change are a surprise and we did not expect this.

Still - there is soo much pretty stuff to see underwater. Even when it is green instead of blue. For example this Dragon Fish - just hanging out on the ice on the seafloor.

While the point of this dive was Science (as always) it also happened to be Steve Rupp's (dive supervisor) 1500th dive under the ice. All in the name of supporting science for decades.

Thanks Steve! Looking forward to more in the future!