Our day began with a climb to the office of the Chilean Armada on a hill above the harbor to check into Chile. It was beautiful waking up in the calm waters surrounded by the quiet of the sleepy town, particularly after the hustle and bustle of Ushuaia. An hour after successfully entering Chile and surveying the whole town (one bakery, one post office and some military installations), we were untied, and headed back into the Beagle Channel.

Our first sign that there was “weather” out there were some small waves breaking on the beach near our mooring. It wasn’t until we got out into the channel that we realized how protected we had been overnight. There were whitecaps a plenty and a few of our dedicated landlubbers were starting to look a little green. Whilst the view was spectacular, a few of us decided to retire for a few hours, possibly catching up on some sleep stolen by the Pisco Sours.

As the day went on we motored through most forms of weather available during the Autumn in southern Chile. We had some lovely clear blue skies, calmer seas, very shortly followed by waves, wind and rain. The rain fell with great enthusiasm, adding to the feeling of being in a washing machine when we looked out the portholes. For a few of the crew on board the waves brought their first experiences with the serious thumping which can occur with the bigger waves - the feeling of floating followed by being thumped into the floor was too much for some stomachs sadly.

For those who were willing to brave the elements and the motion of the Ocean there were some pretty awesome treats to be spotted. Fantastic bird life, albatross dancing with the waves, delighting in the very weather that made us so uncomfortable. We also saw some whale blows (I’m not sure what species*, but there were a few little tale flips and lots of breaching going on, so it was a little pod out for some fun) and then, as we heading into anchor some seals having an awesome seal party. They were all about showing off, jumping, flipping and tempting us to come join them. It’s a privilege to see wild creatures out and about, living their lives for the joy of it, not just to create a spectacle for us. Despite the generous size of the Ocean Tramp we are still aware of how small we are in this vast wilderness, an old wild landscape. It is thrilling to be able to make our way to such places in the world, and see nature in full.

We were also greeted with some spectacular scenery along the way, from the lower rounder mountains in the morning, to the soaring peaks we are surrounded by now. As we came into our little calm inlet we were greeted with fantastic sky scraping mountains, some dusted in snow, whilst the ones further in are well and truly snow covered. It was even possible to see the deep glimmer of the blue ice under the snow layer in the crevasses. 

Now we are at anchor. There are a few other yachts around, and some abandoned buildings on the shore where one of the yacht parties is having a bon fire. Most notably, we are surrounded by birds – as the sun went down they were living the high life, discussing the gossip of the day and filling this inlet with their chatter. In contrast to the sounds of a city, this is fantastically peaceful.

It’s about 3 degrees C outside, and we’re sheltered from the wind. So it should be a great night to catch up on some sleep, share some salty sea dog stories and enjoy the majesty of our surrounds. Our international crew, with Argentinian, American, French and Australian members, have an entertaining and diverse collection of experiences and knowledge to share. Whilst the language is most certainly English at the dinner table, everyone’s Spanish (and French) is rapidly improving, which is a great bonus of the trip. No doubt some of our dedicated photographers will be up bright and early to catch the sunrise. It should be an awe-inspiring backdrop with the fresh clean air. 

* ed. Note: The whales were humpbacks.

After a few days in Ushuaia and now one night on the boat I'm pretty much over the exciting jetlag arising from a trip around the world and getting ready for the science and the sailing. We're on the boat, which is pretty awesome, the crew is very international and enthusiastic. The view from the boat, as below, is pretty gorgeous. And everyone is pretty stoked to be sailing soon. 

We had our very own parade to send us off, for unknown reasons they were having a parade to celebrate the Penguins of Madagascar movie. Which is a big thing in Patagonia.. as it turns out. He's a pretty curious looking lion.  

And of course, because we're looking at microplastics, here's a collection of macoplastics to get us started. For if anyone is out there wondering how plastics end up in the ocean. 

We're getting prepared for the citizen science that's going to be happening on the voyage as well. The Quixote crew are keen to contribute to some of the bigger data collection projects happening in the world. On this trip we're going to be collecting 10 samples for Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation (http://www.adventurescience.org/microplastics.html). As you can see on the map below, there aren't so many samples that have been taken in this area, so we're going to try and fill in some of the blanks as we're going. 

And right now we're waiting out some bad weather. So in the mean time, here's some photos from Ushuaia, as you can see.. they take the whole Falklands/Malvinas thing pretty seriously, don't mention the "F" word. 

And the local National Park, with the end of the last road south in South America. Not to mention with some pretty good views. 

Yesterday, when the weather on dock was delightful. 

And this is our crew prepping our boat for leaving. The weather was awesome yesterday, but at the moment we're held captive in the port by winds. The port closes in bad weather, no one can get in or out, and currently it's blowing 38 knot winds out there.. so it's pretty rocky and we're just waiting and using the last bits of internet before the wilds!

Once we get underway I'll be updating the blog via email, but won't be able to send any photos which will be a shame. But hopefully we'll hit some internet at some point along the way and it'll be possible to share some of the (hopefully) spectacular views. 
In the mean time, I'm going to go test some of my equipment whilst we wait, and fingers crossed we can exit Argentina soon!

There is a new science adventure in the air. Thanks to the inspiration and opportunity provided by Quixote I will be heading to Argentina in the next week to be a solo scientist on one of their yachts. We'll be sailing around the bottom of Argentina, through some Fjords (yes, Argentina has Fjiords!) and then out to the Falkland Islands, and back. It's going to take a bit over 3 weeks. You can see the details here. The purpose of my project is to look for microplastics in the water, and potentially in some fish, but we'll see about the fish. 

So, the idea of this project is that I'm coming along as a early career scientist to do some science, in some pretty remote and otherwise inaccessible parts of the world. I've been offered a berth for the duration of the voyage, the other people on the trip are from all over the world and they're here for their holidays. 
I on the other hand will be sciencing it up! And involving the other passengers wherever possible. Which should be great fun. Everything I've done in the past has involved multimillion dollar boats and thousands of dollars worth of equipment, not to mention a strong support network of experienced scientists ready and willing to help. On this trip it's almost entirely the opposite, small ship, lone scientist and whatever equipment I can rustle up and fit into my luggage. Which has involved a lot of random inventiveness, and quite a few trips to the local hardware store, and supermarket, and fishing shop, and car repair shop, and electronics shop, and supermarket again, and hardware store again. There's some sales people out there petrified of young scientists wandering around town now. 

At the moment I have worked with some colleagues (and long suffering relatives) to develop 3 different experiments, with different likelihoods of success depending on the weather. It's a boat, so things are going to go wrong, some things won't work, some things will go missing, and just plain bad weather could render a whole lot of ideas impossible. Hence the level of redundancies, there's back up's on back ups and piles of zip-lock bags just in-case I hit a jackpot of specimens. Because when it comes to home-made science there's nothing like a zip-lock bag and a coffee filter to get things going. 
We can collect water from different depths to about 20m and filter it for microplastics, and we've got two different ways of collecting water. 
I've also now got the ability, thanks to the awesome kit below, to investigate the stomachs of any fish who may come onboard, and see if any of them have been munching on that tastiest of food, plastics. 

And then I've put together all the general kit for testing water parameters like pH, temperature, salinity etc. So fingers crossed it'll all work! A large portion of my bag is spare batteries for everything, because apparently it can be quite hard to source batteries in the south atlantic. Funny about that!

Stay tuned! Whilst I don't know what sort of internet access I'll have whilst onboard, I am hoping to collect some awesome photos, maybe the occasional video and who knows what else. 
(in the mean time I'm going to head off and try to get all of this to fit!)