Earth Day...

Earth Day was yesterday, but we had to work because the ship was coming in with a bunch of fish the science team had collected on a 3 day trip out to sea. Once the ship ties up at the pier, for some reason their sea water intakes won't run and they can't get fresh sea water into the aquariums on board. So as soon as they get here it's a mad rush to get the fish off the ship and into the aquariums at the station.

Because of this, we decided that we would celebrate Earth Day on Saturday instead with a Hero Inlet clean up party. Sometimes when it's too windy to take the boats out to dive on their transects (the cutoff is 25 knots) the science divers will dive right off the station where they're protected in Hero Inlet, which is a little protected inlet between Bonaparte Point and Gamage Point. It's not ideal for them, but they can collect samples if they need to. Over time, as they've dived off the station, they've noticed a lot of trash that has fallen overboard from the ships coming in, or blown off the station into the water. The folks in Chuck Amsler's group organized us all to do our part for Earth Day.

We got a big group of people together and some of the divers went and collected the trash, and the rest off us hauled it up onto the pier for disposal. They found a bunch of tires, some deck railing, chains, etc. We even found some sea stars attached that we promptly set free.

It was fun to be able to participate in Earth Day, even at the bottom of the world.

Look at that sky!

Hauling trash.

Waiting for the next load.

Sabrina and Chuck coming out of the water.

Divers up with the line haulers.

The Palmer Station Earth Day crew.


Happy Earth Day!

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