January 21, 2006 - Windy Day and bottom creatures
This morning the winds howled out of the northeast at 30-35 knots so no one could leave the station in the boats. It was also clouding and raining a bit. Maria Vila, the Ph.D. student from Barcelona who is working on our project, had spent the night in a tent out in the “backyard”. The backyard is what folks here call the rocky area between the lab and the glacier. Camping out is a popular activity among the residents here. When Maria hadn’t shown up at the lab by 11 am, and since the weather was bad, people started to get worried. The lab has a system of keeping track of everyone who is not in the Station buildings. You have you sign yourself out on a chalkboard saying where you are going and when you expect to return. If you are not back by the time you say, they will send someone looking. You have to do this if you go out in the boats but also if you go in the backyard, or up to the glacier. They sent some “Search and Rescue” folks out to look for Maria. To make a long story short, they found Maria happily still sleeping in the tent – her watch had stopped and she thought it was only 4 am!
Today was Saturday so it was time for House Mouse (Station-wide cleaning) again. I drew the upstairs hallway and stairways of the Bio Building. I had to sweep the stairs and then mop them. Not too bad.
Since there were two private yachts staying in Arthur Harbor and the Sedna IV was here also, the Station invited everyone on those boats to dinner and a party. It was a big group and we all shared many varieties of pizza that were home made in the galley. The party lasted well into the night – I attended that only later after I did some work in the lab and rode the stationary bike in the gym. It was a fun evening.
When cruise ships come to visit the Station the visitors get shown an aquarium tank full of bottom-dwelling animals that are found in the local area. The tank is kept in a wet lab where we do some of the filtering and sample processing. The other day when they opened up the garage door on the wet lab and let the sun shine on the aquarium tank, I took some photos. There are lots of interesting creatures in this tank, and they are all beautiful. There are lots of limpets, which are mollusks that feed by scraping the rocks of algae and other attached food items. Limpets, also known as slipper shells, are similar to snails, but with a big hat-like shell on their back. Limpet shells are all over the rocks here, even on high areas of the land. They get there when the birds pick up the live animals and carry them off to be eaten.
