12/18/01 0600 hrs.

64 40 S

62 53 W

0 degrees centigrade

No wind, clouds on the mountains

Light snow earlier this morning

Today has the potential to be a beautiful day. An early light snow has ended, high clouds are thinning overhead and the clouds around the mountains are breaking up. Blue sky day? It is perfectly calm.

The yesterday evening and early morning today were spent doing additional sea floor topography mapping with the Seabeam system. Around 7 pm last night a video system was put over the side and a 2 hour video of the sea floor was taken.  I have not seen it yet but was told it shows a sea floor teaming with life. It is not possible to send a video segment using our satellite link but I may be able to pull a still off the system and send that later today.

The morning promises to be very busy as we deploy a sediment trap in the mouth of Andvord Bay. This device is designed to capture sediment settling through the water column and will be recovered next year. More about this in the afternoon post along with some photos.

Cheers,

Dave

Caption for photo:

Early this morning looking across the mirror smooth water of the Gerlache Strait at Ronge Island. Hidden in the clouds are the over 2000 foot high mountains in the interior of the island.