Expeditioners go on a boating trip and a visitor drops into Buckles Bay.

A flotilla heads down island

During the recent resupply the incoming team had the opportunity to go on a boating trip down the east coast with experienced coxswains guiding the small flotilla of inflatable boats.

It was a great chance for the team to see the island in all its glory from the water, and to practise safe landing and launching of the boats at Green Gorge and Sandy Bay. It was also useful for some team members to practice disentangling the propeller from the local notorious bull kelp.

For many of us it was the first time we had seen the Green Gorge field hut. Now we know what we're hiking towards in the coming weeks as our field training starts.

A visitor drops by…

Macquarie Island’s most regular New Zealand sea lion visitor was spotted again this week. He was also spotted during the resupply a few weeks ago. Luckily he still has a small flipper tag that helps us identify him and record when he is spotted. He was tagged as a pup on Enderby Island (a NZ sub-Antarctic island) in 2010.

The New Zealand sea lion (Phocarctos hookeri) is one of the rarest and most endangered sea lions. Also known as Hooker’s sea lion, they breed mostly on New Zealand sub-Antarctic islands but are known to occasionally haul out on Macquarie Island.

While he attracted a lot of attention from the station community, we were all sure to maintain the wildlife approach distance from him…with Kerryn leading by example in the photo below!

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