This month Alan is headed to the Canary Islands again after an international skirmish resulted in a tour of the Indian Ocean, a diverted plane back to Perth, and permanently altered travels plans. 

Thom is out in the Antarctic again, squid-chasing with Kat Bolstad. After teaming up with  Aurora Expeditions the intrepid pair went all the way from New Zealand to Argentina, right across a huge swath of the Southern Ocean and are visiting places research vessels don’t often get to go.

With a giant to-do list they are dropping two ESCA squid-chasing cameras, one shallow and one deep, and are also managing a plankton net and a niskin water sampling bottle. Water samples from both depths will be sent to Georgia Nester for eDNA analysis.

Thom and Kat also set a world record on their trip for traveling further south than any ship ever has, a somewhat bittersweet honor since the 223m gain on the previous record holder, a French Icebreaker, was due to cleared seas from receding ice. 

Thom did manage to catch the Iron Lung film before he left and really enjoyed it. Now his recordings on the red-light cameras feel a bit apocalyptic, like an Iron Lung inspired monster search in an ocean of blood.

The Unseen Ocean Collective

• Suggestions and ideas for topics related to a writing class

• Vicariously visited a common toad Valentine's Day party in the UK

• Enjoyed the unending drama of bad AI images, including branching snakes, and mystery gremlins. 

• Entomology podcast recommendation to learn fish names. 

• Compared notes on which museums had great dinosaur exhibits

• Endless talk on parasitic louse mouth orgies

• Images from the Unseen Ocean Collective adventures and show in Juneau Alaska

• Dreamed about also visiting Antarctica with Thom and Kat.

• Decided that Alan is not a robot.