The day started with awful weather at Palmer Station, so I spent my time there putting my mad zodiac holding skillz to good use. The work allowed me two shifts at the station instead of just one, and since Palmer is known for its brownies I ate more than my share. The station holds only 45 people, so the atmosphere there is pretty friendly — as just one example, they have a weekly science presentation, and this week’s presentation was being given by a researcher who had visited the Russian Vostok station (an awesome place — read about it if you can). The presentation was about her experiences there, but someone had added the subtitle “Vostok: An American woman and several cold, lonely Russian men.”
After leaving Palmer we headed for the Lemaire Channel, and while it was mostly clear it was overcast enough to fall slightly short of its “Kodak Gap” reputation. We did see the first two groups of killer whales for the trip, so that was a highlight. The afternoon landing was at Peterman Island, which local researchers have placed under several severe and often confusing restrictions. The ongoing joke was that we were pretty sure it was OK to go on land, but moving or making eye contact with penguins seemed questionable. While we were there the light turned absolutely amazing for photography, and with my special photographic abilities I think I may have managed to turn the beautiful scenery into truly mediocre images.
