Another crossing of the Antarctic Circle

For the past days we have done our best to reach the drillsites 9B and 8A near the coastline (see ice image in previous post). We did drill there for a while with great success before the storm, but after the storm the ice had shifted and we were not able to get back into the area. There are too many icebergs and pieces of multi-year sea ice. We did see some more of the coast of Antarctica and more penguins, Adelie penguins this time, on icebergs. The penguins have big bellies and look very well fed at the end of the summer. They are ready to face winter, which you can tell, is now coming soon.

The break in drilling gave us a chance to catch up with report writing, and in the chemistry lab almost all samples are processed now. For you science nerds (like me) out there see this video made by chemist Tina about how high precision balances work on a ship:
If you are interested in what else goes on in the chemistry lab, watch this video, made by Dan Brinkhuis, the shipboard videographer: