languorous life

I took a run/walk yesterday up the Hut Ridge Trail. This trail was the only one I had not done yet. My run took me along a steep trail where I had a run-in with a Skua mother who was trying to protect her fluffy white chick. The poor little chick was right in the middle of the trail; thankfully, in this place, there is an alternate route to continue on!

At the top of this trail, I saw an iceberg that moved in towards town. There are certain sites that define "Antarctica" and icebergs are certainly one of them. I hope this one moves even closer to us!

On the way back down the trail, I ran into a woman who said she stood out on Hut Point and could see seals and penguins swimming under the water. I ran up to the edge and looked down for no more than a minute before I heard and saw a seal pop up out of the water. I soon saw three of them bobbing in and out of the sea. I also spotted a sea star under the waves which seemed out of the ordinary. I have seen the sea creatures in tanks in our Crary Lab Aquarium here, but seeing a sea star "for real" in Antarctica's water seems a bit extrodinary (I embelished the color on this photo a bit so you could have a better glimpse of what I saw under the sea)!

Of all this, I think I most enjoyed seeing some green lichen and odd organic spheres lacing the edge and bottoms of pooling water on the trail. This may look like the most disgusting green glob of sludge to you, but I was taken aback by the discovery of something so full of life on this otherwise quite desolate continent. I looked up algae and lichen in Antarctica and there are plenty of types of the stuff all over the continent. I was mesmorized by this slimy stuff for quite awhile!

To counter this gunk, there was air-filled ice covering a half of the pool! This bubbly frozen water seemed so purely captured!

Today, after over a month of temperatures over freezing, we had a cold, cold day. The windchill when I woke up was -8. Yikes! I was not ready for that and one of the women in my suite had to tell me that I'd probably want to wear Big Red to work; with the hood up! Brrr...

*favorite photo: ice bubbles.