Dale Andersen's Antarctic Field Report 26 November 2013

Today’s weather is a major improvement over what we have seen the last two weeks while in Antarctica.

This really is the first day of beautiful blue skies, sunshine and little wind. As you can see in the enclosed image (which is pretty small so it can be sent via my Iridium Satellite phone) we are camped on the shores of Lake Obersee and are surrounded by beautiful glaciers and mountains.  We have had the hole melter running since 10 am yesterday morning and by this afternoon we should have a pretty good sized hole (1 m or so in diameter) suitable for diving.

Andrew Abercrombie and I will be diving this year to collect samples, take measurements underwater and to obtain good quality photos and video. We will also use this hole to launch the VideoRay ROV we have with us so we can see what the microbial mat community is like distant from the hole.

It has a tether that is much longer than the one attached to the divers so it affords us the opportunity to explore the site a bit more…..and the ROV does not run of air or get cold while underwater!

The research team is doing well and our camp provides a comfortable, warm environment from which we can work in the exceedingly remote area of the planet.

More soon from the  Tawani Antarctic Research Team!

Dale