Students on Ice Expedition Cancelled...

Well, the expedition is cancelled so it looks as though my plans are once again fluid. I have a few ideas, involving going back to Staats Island with the guanacos and the Magellanic penguins, trying to keep my flight to Buenos Aires so I can spend Christmas on the beach, and then heading down to Ushuaia to see if I can thumb a ride to Antarctica. We'll see how that goes.

To go back a few days though....
We had absolutely amazing sunny weather on Staats Island for the 12 days that we were there. I had my little one-person tent pitched next to some Magellanic Penguin burrows (and even managed to avoid getting bitten by the Magellanic fleas!) overlooking Hamilton Bay and some other West Falkland islands. I was woken every morning by the alarm calls of the guanacos or the mating calls of the Magellanic penguins...neither of them being terribly gentle wake-ups.

I swam in the ocean on one of the hottest days!!! And boy was it cold. But I went in twice so it couldn't have been that bad. I might have scared a few Upland Geese and penguins with my scream as I dove in though! The water is one of the most beautiful, deep blues I have ever seen, and the sand is some of the whitest in the world (or so the Kelpers say....Kelpers are what the locals call themselves).

We tagged many newborn guanacos (aka chulengos)...which are so soft and cuddly when you catch them only hours after they're born. If you wait too much longer, they can outrun you! And when you're running over the clumps of Balsam bog and oceanic heath, they definitely have the advantage.

Part of my project involved ground-truthing a vegetation survey of the island, so I've got plenty of plant samples I am working to identify. We're trying to get a composition of the major plant communities on the island and compare them to historical photos pre-guanaco introduction. This will hopefully help establish the effect of the introduction of these animals on to the island.

Well, I'll try and post some photos soon, but in the mean time I will be trying to figure out some plans for Christmas and the new year. I don't plan on cutting my trip short...I'm down here, so I might as well see what kind of adventures I can get into. Keep your fingers crossed for me!