We woke close to Ny Ålesund in much much much calmer seas. It was quite a nice break after the storm and the drama. Everyone was starting to feel a bit better, though there are a few grey faces. Our day started with attempting to identify more polychaets. This wasn’t overly successful from my account as there were just too many new words and concepts to be learning. But the leader found a great little guy (below) for me to try and ID.
He's a Polynoidae just incase you're wondering (it's the scales that are the giveaway)
He was pretty awesome up close too, although he did make a few spirited attempts at freedom, including all over my jeans, an event he definitely won.
Have a closer look
And then those little legs up even closer, as you can see they are pretty impressive, and there are a lot of them.
closer..
But then we got to go onto the land at Ny Ålesund which is a fantastic little research station. Our ship docked and looked quite photogenic.
It used to be a coal mining town but now the mine has been abandoned, mostly due to a drastic incident a few years ago. Now it’s entirely used for research and there’s a whole bunch of nations that have little settlements up there. So there’s some cool old mining relics, including a random little train.
There’s the cool way everyone gets around town, though there are plenty of cars too.
We went for quite a walk along the beach to stretch some tired ship legs and found a beach covered with snow, which for the Australian’s was quite a shock..
And of course we all had a bit of fun relaxing, though it wasn’t your average beach party. A lot of activities become more fun when you are wearing waterproof snow clothing.
When we got back there was still quite a bit of work to be done. There were a few molluscs to try and identify. As you can see here.. there are a few to go:
And they look pretty awesome up close. But we didn’t get a whole lot done, there were too many new things to learn and not enough time which was quite a shame. But it was quite nice to have a close look.
There was also more glacier time. There are few things more refreshing than going out for a breath of fresh glacier air when you need a break. Even though all the heat immediately gets ripped out of your skin. There was quite a bit of action happening on the glacier too, plenty of bits breaking off it and lots of sounds from the ship crashing into mini icebergs.
Our last full day tomorrow, it’s been a very full time but it’s going to be a shame to leave the boat and move back to landlubber activities.
P.S I asked if I could stay in Ny A and the goss was, really probably not, its 1000NOK/night plus 1000NOK/day for food plus your “bench”/lab fee. So it’s some pretty lucky scientists that get to stay up there.. though it is remote
P.S I asked if I could stay in Ny A and the goss was, really probably not, its 1000NOK/night plus 1000NOK/day for food plus your “bench”/lab fee. So it’s some pretty lucky scientists that get to stay up there.. though it is remote
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