Snowy Morning

Just so you don't think the weather is always beautiful here, I shot these pictures of our snowy morning, last Monday. After the snow poured in, the wind picked up and brought a load of newly calved glacier ice from Loudwater Cove through the passage behind Old Palmer and a river of ice appeared in Arthur harbor. It quickly inundated the shore line making it easy to pick out or photograph bergie bits in the water. Then it turned the corner and closed in the boating ramp.


The River of ice turning towards us from Loudwater.


The view up Arthur harbor.


The view down Arthur Harbor


A few bits of ice had interesting form, but on the whole it was mostly balls of snowy ice. We didn't get out in the boat because of the winds, so we might have missed the bits that didn't get bashed in the surf.


I wish I could mold some of these textures, but the pieces are just too big. This one weighs tons. In a few days we are going to try to grab some bigger pieces but I just don't have the mold making resources to do anything with them. They might be study bits and maybe local sculpture. Below is a piece we captured a few days back. Art and I sawed it in half and took a mold off the battuto, or faceted, texture.




Here is the silicone mold we took off the above bit. After experimenting with the material we found we got better surfaces if we didn't use the thickener. That meant we had to completely enclose the flow of the silicone, which we did with aluminum foil. The surface of the resulting mold is perfect.


This piece of snowy ice seems to have just been for study. I still have it in the freezer. I am contemplating molding it, but I'm not sure if its the best use of the remaining material.


Meanwhile the ice had come around to the boating dock. Trying to make headway through this stuff is like making margarita mix, grinding up ice as you slowly push through. The prop is OK with the ice as long as you don't hit a big one, but they keep getting caught under the boat. You have to wiggle and shake the boat to get them out, even when trapped from the sides by more floating ice.


These penguins in the "back yard," the area of glacial rubble behind the station, were hassling some skuas who may have been trying to build a nest. The penguins kept walking up to the skuas until they flew off. Don't feel too bad for the skuas, though, Art caught one stealing a penguin egg in a shot on Torgensen Island. I'll try to get him to post it.


Some people really know how to use an iceberg. Several of these guys were hanging out by the Station. The ice was flowing pretty fast and the seals would look around every few minutes to see where they were going.