Dan Costa, aboard the Yuzomegeologia, Drake Passage, Antarctica -- To give you a feel for where we've been working these last few weeks, the first image shows what it's like on a clear sunny day at Cape Shirreff, a remote outpost in the Shetland Islands, about 72 miles from the Antarctic mainland. the That's the overall study sight for the fur seal work we're been doing, as well as where we tagged elephant seals and leopard seals. The second is within the area shown in the first image. It's days like this that make one realize what a tremendous opportunity it is to be able to carry out studies is such magnificent places.

OK, now that you think every day is like the one pictured in the previous two images, here's what the Cape looked like most of the time I was there. We had amazing weather at the beginning and the end of my stay, but it rained, was windy and cold most of the rest of the time. However, there's still amazing beauty, even in days like that.

The following photos were taken on the day we finished our last deployment of a CTD tag on Southern elephant seals. This large male elephant seal in the closeup was very close to us while we worked on the female seal that we deployed the tag on, as you can see in the second photo.

The male and two females remained right next to us for the entire procedure, up until we started to lower the animal from weighing. The mechanism makes a loud, high-pitched noise when we lower it, and elephant seals -- both southern and northern -- really don't like it.