Li Ling – Feb 27:
Most people are busy packing up today: packing the instruments back into their boxes, packing the samples they’ve taken during the cruise for shipping, preparing lists and labels for shipping, organizing and processing the data that we’ve collected, etc.
We are now sailing in the open ocean. The weather has been really nice during the entire cruise, and today the sea remained quite calm as well. There is now practically no sea ice, though we are still sailing through a few icebergs every now and then and icebergs are still decorating the horizon.
As the ship sails, you will sometimes see a pack of small dark dots sitting at the surface of the ocean, easily mistaken as part of the waves. When the ship gets closer to the dots, however, the dots will move and start to fly away! And then, you’ll notice that they are actually small Blue Petrels of around 30 cm size!
A group of Blue Petrels flying away as the ship gets closer
A closed-up picture of a Blue Petrel (they are actually more gray than blue…)