As you have read in previous journal entries, we did not expect to be diving through fast ice when we got here to Palmer Station. But that's what we found and we made the best of it, making a number of important collections that have allowed us to get the project off the ground. But a big storm earlier in the week broke up and blew out all the land fast ice.

So we are done with diving though fast ice, but not done with the ice. What we did expect was that there would still be lots of pack ice and brash ice. And that's what we have now, at least when the winds blow it in.

Two days ago we had wonderful weather and ice-free waters so we were able to get out and dive from the zodiacs (and we made good use of it, making three two-person dives before a storm came in late in the afternoon). But otherwise, most of our dives since the fast ice broke up have been in waters right off the station though pack ice, brash ice, or a mixture of those.

Pack ice is composed primarily of remnants of fast ice that have a long way to go before they melt. They are commonly the size of a couple tennis courts and, further offshore, they can be larger than multiple city blocks.

Brash ice is something that can be a problem any time. It is little bits of ice that can be from glaciers or icebergs breaking up or from pack ice breaking up. Often it is a mixture of small ice from both sources. If it is packed together really tight, you can't get a boat through it. That is how it has been off the station for the last couple days. Clear, open water has been as close as a couple hundred meters off the station but the brash has been too dense to get through to it.

So as several of us in the group have done lately, today Katrin and I made a "beach" dive from the boat dock through the brash. When underwater, it is no different from diving in open water. But getting in and out is a bit of a challenge as you have to work your way through the chunks of ice. Some, those roughly between the size of a baseball and a basketball, aren't much of a problem. But the larger ones, which can be the size of a barrel or a large tractor tire, are a lot bigger than us. So we work our way around or "work with" those!

We had a very successful dive. Our goal was primarily to collect animals for feeding bioassays, where we offer them natural or artificial food items to determine what potential foods might be chemically defended from them. We collected a large number of sea anemones and sea stars.

We also collected amphipods (tiny, shrimp-like animals) that live on the macroalgae by cutting the bases of several large plants and then rapidly stuffing them into very fine mesh bags (actually made out of material for sheer curtains like you may have at home).

Sometimes we are able to collect fish by hand (I got two the last time I was in that same area) but no luck today. The species we use is very sedentary but to get them by hand, they need to be out in the open so you can quickly push them into an open collecting bag. We didn't see any out in the open today. But otherwise, it was a great dive!

Maggie and Jim were waiting for us back at the dock when we burst our way back up through the brash. Diving through it certainly works but I'm sure hoping that the winds push the brash out of the harbor so we can dive from the zodiacs tomorrow.