4 October 2011 Whose hut is this, anyway?

This is my house...

I have been telling you that it has been an active year for Weddell seals. Well, today took the cake. As we pulled up to our dive hut, I noticed that there was something lumpy and gray inside where there should have been blank floor.

When I opened the door, I found this....

Weddell seals don't have any land predators here, so they are not really afraid of human beings. I guess this particular Weddell thought, "How nice that the humans drilled this hole and have provided me with a heated hut!"

Needless to say, the seal eventually had enough of us and our funny suits, and slid gracefully back into the hole.

With an up-close and personal look at the Weddell seal, we had an opportunity to observe the structural adaptations that Mr. Crandell's classes talked about in our forum. You can read about the structural adaptations and add your own to the list by clicking here.

Later that dive, the seal made an underwater appearance as if to say, "If I knew you were going to come down here, I would have just stayed up in the hut."

Hiking

Last evening, I also did an amazing hike with Stacy. The weather was clear and the wind was calm. We went from about 8:30 PM - 10:30 PM. It's amazing that we have seen such an increase in daylight length. When we arrived at McMurdo, there were less than 2 hours of daylight every day. Now, we have over 14 hours of daylight. That's a huge change for just six weeks!