Work at Leconte Glacier

I spent last week down in Petersburg to visit the Leconte Glacier for work. We are researching the ocean/ice interaction on tidewater glaciers. For this specific project the goal was to put in a mooring buoy that has several instruments that will measure sea water temperature, salinity, and currents. The weather was fairly decent, overcast and light winds for the first few days. Here are some photos from the trip.

 

 Our first look at the Leconte Glacier after hours of travel from Petersburg.

 View from the bow of the R/V Kestrel.

 Here is part of our mooring buoy that we will retrieve in the fall. The large orange buoy on the left will house our instrument that will measure currents in the fjord. The concrete block on the right is the anchor and the yellow instrument attached to it is the acoustic release. If all goes as planned we will send a signal to the release in the fall which will allow the release to detach from the anchor and large orange buoy to float to the surface.  

 Closer view of the Leconte Glacier

 There were lots of seals with pups that were enjoying the weather and were hauled out on the icebergs.

 All the black dots in the photo above are seals hauled out on the icebergs.

 This was about as close as we could get to the glacier due to ice conditions.

 Scenic fjord

The only picture I have of myself from the trip.

 This is the R/V Kestrel. It is about 100' long. It was a big boat to take into the fjord!

Jackie went fishing while I was gone. She caught a nice King Salmon on her boss's boat last Friday night. The King weighted around 20 lbs.

Hopefully we will have some more fishing pictures soon!