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A spectacular day yesterday with virtually no wind, clear blue skies, bright sunshine and ice bergs scattered around us. We cruised East to Casey sighting some humpbacks in the distance milling around and wondered if they might be feeding while we were followed by a large flock of Antarctic Petrels who often landed on the water around the ship. Judy even spotted an Antarctic Fur Seal lying on a bergy bit of ice soaking up some sun! Some Aurora activity last night topped off the day of clear skies and this morning the good conditions continue with some Cape Petrels making an appearance. Folks on the ship remain busy with data being crunched on computers after a busy season of science, post season reports being written, workouts happening in the ship's gym, ice berg spotting and recording and even a guitar being strummed quietly as we cruise along. Of course in amongst all of this the ship's crew are preparing meals, doing maintenance and steaming us ever closer to Casey. The krill trawl net is ready at the stern so should we spot some krill we can drop it in and catch some. The collection of Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) is an annual event undertaken to restock the AAD's aquarium facility at Kingston with fresh animals each season. The ideal location to target krill is very near the ice edge and on the shelf break. Live krill are collected by carefully towing a specially designed net called a rectangular midwater trawl (RMT) net. The net is targeted at a reasonably shallow swarm of krill, as determined by the ship's echo sounders. A school of krill will usually appear on the echo sounder screen as a having fuzzy edges and will often form a continuous band over a large horizontal area. The redder the echogram trace, the denser the krill swarm! Once captured, the live krill are maintained in flow-through seawater tanks in a temperature controlled laboratory, for transport back to Kingston. We hope to get some between here and Casey or on our way home.
Map
A map showing Australia and Antarctica. The map shows the journey of one voyage that has occured in the season, with each route highlighted in a distinct colour.