Travels of a Fish Nut

I’m off to sea again today for about three weeks so I won’t be posting for a while. I hope everyone is well and I’ll write when I get back.

The penguins have been returning to Gypsy Cove over the last few weeks and my housemates and I have been trying to get out there to see them. Unfortunately the weather hasn’t been the best for walking around sea cliffs but today the wind died down and so we headed out for a look. We saw penguins! They were mostly on the beach . . . . . . but one on the first we saw was sitting in its burrow . . . We also saw a rock shag colony: We also saw a rock shag colony: And there was a juvenile just below us: It’s really beautiful at the moment because spring has come (although we did have snow this morning!) and the gorse is out in flower. I can’t believe how lucky I am to be here . It’s incredibly beautiful and a ten minute drive from home takes me to see penguins!

We had one day of bad weather and we went and hid in a bay. In the evening we had the opportunity to go to a small island and see some elephant seals that were on the beach. It was absolutely incredible. We didn’t leave our boat (a little dinghy thing, I can’t remember the proper name) but we got close to them all the same. There was a group of fur seals which entered the water once we arrived and swam around and then a small harem of female elephant seals with pups, controlled by a HUGE male. The weather was very calm (despite the bad weather in open water) and it was beautiful. It felt like we were the only people in the entire world. I’ll shut up now and show you the photos! Fur seals: The elephant seals (the male is the one on the far right): Mother and pup: The male: The male with a female and her pup: The view:

I had a fantastic time on the research cruise. It was strange but nice to be working with people rather than alone and even though it was hard work it was interesting. I saw lots of new species, mostly invertebrates but some new fish which was good. I thought I’d show some of the species I saw. One of the most beautiful invertebrates we got was the painted shrimp ( Campylonotus vegans ). It’s found in shallow waters and has electric blue spots on its back. We had a three small octopuses which we kept in a bucket (the ‘save the octopus campaign’!). They were very cute and liked to hide in shells. It’s not a fantastic photo but this is Maurolicus muelleri . It’s a very small fish (less than 6 cm long) but is highly silvered and has photophores along its ventral edge. This is my first flat fish in the Islands. It’s Thysanopsetta naresi and is not commonly caught. This one is of average size, about 16 cm long. This is one of my favourite invertebrates. It’s a basket star, Gorganocephalu

We got back to land about an hour ago after two weeks at sea. It was fine coming in but we had a snow shower a few minutes ago which was quite bizarre! Once we've unloaded the ship we'll get the rest of the day and tomorrow off so there won't be any posts until next week. But I have lots of photos (including some of mammals!) to show. On a different note, it's mum's birthday this weekend, so HAPPY BIRTHDAY MUM!!!

I’m off again this evening for a couple of weeks. It’s a research cruise which is something I’ve always wanted to go on, and I’ll have my birthday on board which will be interesting!