January 24, 2006 – Brash, Leopard Seal & Foam

The winds finally died down enough for us to go out in the Zodiac to sample our stations.  The morning was very dark overcast, but fortunately it stopped raining around the time we set out.  But today there was a huge amount of brash ice in the harbor and even all the way out to Station B.  Brash ice is broken up bits of icebergs and glacial ice. Some of the chunks were quite large today and it was a very slow trip to get to open water.  We had to go through this again on the way in and George and Maria went up on the bow to help push the ice out of the way. Some pieces were the size of small cars! 

One of the good things about all the ice today was that there were several seals taking a snooze on the ice floes.  Most of these were crabeater seals but I was excited to see that one was different.  As we got closer I could see that it was a leopard seal!  This was my first good look at one. I was excited.  They are impressive. They are more sleek than the other seals and they have a very big mouth. This one didn’t open his mouth and he hardly seemed to care that we cruised by within 30 feet or so.  George, who was driving the boat at that moment, didn’t want to get too close because they have a reputation for harassing Zodiacs, and we couldn’t move too well at that point because of all the ice.  Leopard seals can be very aggressive predators. They eat penguins, baby seals, fish and krill.  

On the way back in today, we passed very close to a snoozing crabeater seal. I got a good photo of his flipper, which you can see looks very much like a hand – complete with finger nails.  In fact, the seals flippers evolved from hands (or paws) of their ancestors which were land animals.  Like all the rest, this seal didn’t seem to care that we were close by. Crabeater seals actually eat mostly krill, not crabs.

Once we got out past the brash ice, we could make a little more speed toward Station E (we go there first because it is farther out – about 2.5 miles).  Although the wind wasn’t too bad, the swells were quite big and it was a bit rough. A little past Station B, we came across an extensive foam slick on the surface of the water (see photo).  The foam is natural and is derived from the organic matter that is exuded from the phytoplankton. When the organic-rich water is churned against icebergs or the many rock islands around here, it gets whipped up like whipped cream and the result is the foam.  Then the wind blows the foam into rows, usually along the edge of two water masses.  Today I could see that the water was a different color on the other side of the foam.  Water masses of different densities (controlled by salinity and temperature) don’t mix very well and you can get lots of these edges in coastal areas like this.

We got out to Station E and found the swells to be pretty big.  It wasn’t very comfortable to be out there, but we got the job done. Because of the slow trip in and out today it was a long sampling day and we were all eager to get back to the Station for some food and warmth.  After a quick meal and some coffee, I ran all the DMS samples from today. The concentrations have changed a lot since we sampled last! Those strong winds of the past few days made the DMS concentration high down to much deeper depths than it was before.    Very interesting – now we have to figure out why…