First Penguin of the Season

It happened, I saw my first penguin of the season!

 

 A molting emperor penguin

This afternoon, our group (myself, John, Dave and Lee) had snowmobile training. This consisted of two sessions. The first session was held indoors. The instructor covered basic maintenance and repair of the snow mobile. This is important for field work. If something on the snow mobile breaks while we are in the field, we are the only mechanics available to do the repairs. Following the indoor session, we went outside for a hands on session. We started by doing a walk around of the machine. This includes checking that all of the bolts are tight, the springs are in working condition, nothing is leaking under the hood, and making sure the skis are not frozen to the ground. After the walk around was complete, I started up my machine and we went for a ride. We were on the snow road for most of the riding, but also did a little off-roading at the Long Term Balloon launching facility. At the launching facility there were a lot of snow drifts, which were great obstacles and made for some fun riding. On the ride back, we spotted an emperor penguin on the side of the snow road. We stopped to check it out and get some photos. This was definitely the highlight of my day.

Emperor penguin on the Ice Shelf, Antarctica

Me with an emperor penguin