We left Palmer Station (above) yesterday evening and arrived at Crystal Sound this morning where the previous seal team tagged its first seal.

The weather was ugly with high winds and snow, but cleared as the day progressed. The area had changed considerably since the previous deployments -- lots of new sea ice formed (including this beautiful natural ice sculpture), which is normal as Antarctica moves into its winter months.

As we sailed into the sound, we encountered large numbers of fur seals but only a handful of crabeater seals, most of which were on small floes unsuitable for tagging. Two seals were on reasonable floes but the ice made use of the Zodiacs problematic, and the animals left the floes before we could complete an approach.

We moved into Lallemand Fjord this evening (passing this interesting iceberg), where Seal Team One was so successful. We'll attempt to tag here tomorrow. We were able to complete a CTD cast in close proximity to the location of our tagged Weddell seal for use in validating the tag sensors.