Visiting the Kiwis

The day started with some groups going to the ice, and my group stayed in the lab to trial some approaches to our project. Tess and I were working on dissections of the amphipods' guts and preparing the sample to count cells. The microbial cells look very cool in the fluorescent microscope.

The first groups started flying to the ice edge, I can’t wait until I have a chance to go there! They have seen orcas on the flight and penguins while there. There is a lot of safety involved in getting us to sample at the ice edge, we are basically tied by climbing ropes and there is someone from field safety that goes with us and is ready to jump into action if anything happens.

At the end of the afternoon, we walked to the Kiwi base, it was a great walk with a great view to the ice and we could see a huge melt pond forming on the sea ice. Tess has a friend who is working at the NZ base and she invited both of us for dinner. Because of the huge difference in size, people from the American base (~850) can only go to the Kiwi base (~80) when invited by someone who works there (apart from the store, which is allowed any time). Dinner was delicious and they had an espresso machine! And the powdered milk there tastes so good! I made a cappuccino, and it’s official, the kiwis have the best coffee on the continent!

People there were really nice and friendly, and it was nice to be there for dinner for a change of scenery. I met another Brazilian there, Bia, she works in the field training team and she is very fun too!