Sun and Snow

I decided tonight to take a little time and write this up as opposed to
reading and going to bed like I should. We will see how far I get since I
was up pretty late last night compiling data for some updates to my boss
and for our weekly "sit rep" (situation report).

As of Christmas day, I am the acting camp leader here at the Cape. Our
previous camp leader left on the ship and the next one doesn't come in
until early January, so I get to play the responsible one. It's a little
nerve wracking at times, but it's also a very good experience. Its rare
that they let us lowly contractors be camp leader, so a lot of eyes are on
me and, really, the whole crew. I'm sure we will do fine!

So the weather recently has been… complicated. In one day- ONE DAY- I got
decently sunburnt and had to worry about frostnip (funny name, but it's a
real thing. Its like frostbite lite). Pretty much every day for the past 4
or 5 days has had a mix of beautiful sun, blue sky, light to moderate wind,
and occasional snow flurries that leave visibility at about "I'm pretty
sure I'm walking in the right direction to make it home." On the plus side
of things, the tides have been extremely low around midday for the past
week (thank you full moon that I'm informed is somewhere up there), which
makes getting around easier because instead of sinking up to your knees in
the snow every step you take and then having to slowly walk/ wade through
the snow and slush mixture that you are pretty sure has to get better in a
few steps but actually seems to give into that belief, you can just walk in
the intertidal.

There is nothing more pathetic and disheartening than being on a nice dry
patch of land, seeing your next dry patch maybe 20 feet away, and just
watching your feet and knees disappear as you try to take as few steps as
possible to cover the great crevice-like expanse that in reality is a small
stream melting out under a couple feet of snow.

In other news, we also completed our cape-wide fur seal pup census this
weekend. Being paid to spend all day hiking around looking for baby fur
seals is not the worst job in the world by any means. That being said, it
was a little depressing because our numbers are down significantly from
last year. About 20% down. We did expect about a 10% decrease because
that's just what has been happening to the population for the past decade.
However, doubling that is a bit disheartening. Luckily though, the pups
that are here appear to be bigger overall and growing fast than in the past
2 years, which is a good sign!

Also in good news, at least for now, is that we are only just starting to
get leopard seals trickling in. That's not to say they wont show up in
greater numbers soon, but every extra day the pups get to grow bigger,
faster, and smarter might give them an extra fighting chance. If nothing
else, if the pups are bigger when they are eaten, then maybe the leopards
will only need 3 or 4 to feel full instead of 5 or 6, allowing more pups to
survive! Silver lining?

We ate lots of food for Christmas and are still working on leftovers
tonight (turkey enchiladas!). No big plans for new years really other than
staying up. Now that solstice is behind us the daylight is slipping away!
We are down to only about 20 hours now! And the dusk/dawn that is night
feels just that much darker! In reality it will be a while before we need
flashlights to walk around outside at night, but its fun to pretend like
these are "real world" problems. Despite the snow flurries this is my 4th
consecutive summer with no true winters in between (bouncing between
hemispheres has its perks).