Alexandra and I still
had another exceedingly long night shift, leaving SAERI after 1 am – without
even having finished our samples from North Arm. In fact, the seaweed diversity
encountered there far exceeded our collections – once more. We had visited the
site in Dec. 2010, already with a similar result, but the different season
(almost 2 months later) made a big difference to the species composition which
was now heavily dominated by red seaweeds (instead of the browns earlier in the
season). Around 60 species, mostly of red algae from less than 2 hours of
collecting! Correspondingly, Alexandra and I were in a Zombie-like state in the
morning, and still around 25 specimens to prepare.
In the afternoon, we
visited Paul Brewin in the new building of the Falkland Islands Government
Fisheries Department with good lab facilities. This will become Alexandra’s
research home after our departure back to Europe on Feb. 12. We made various
arrangements with Paul about our diving plans etc.
I am writing this just
before leaving SAERI once more. Tomorrow we will visit a couple of sites on the
west coast of East Falkland.
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