Yesterday we were joined by our third crew member, Dr. Fiona Sinnett-Smith, the team leader for our whale research and citizen science projects. Dr Peter Gill, who is the overall project director for our whale research, also called into Robe to pay our small team a visit. We spent the afternoon discussing objectives and reviewing some of our plans.  In the evening we adjourned to a local pub and restaurant, the Caledonian, for dinner and continued discussions on subjects wide and various.

This morning Peter returned home while we three crew got stuck into preparations for getting to sea and looking for whales. At this stage we will be doing further preparations tomorrow with a view to getting underway early Wednesday morning when the wind drops off.

It is all a bit of a shock to the system with so many crew and a ship’s cat (acting) on board, nonetheless old Sylph seems to be taking it all with her usual good grace.

All is well.

Dr Fiona and Dr Peter:

The sea-going crew for February:

Rigging flight nets for emergency recovery of the UAV:

Crew practicing climbing aloft for whale spotting duties:

The view from aloft: