We have been pushing up through Welcome Sound, a narrowing strait between the mainland and the northern tip of Southhampton Island. The currents were ripping on some of the dives! But apart from causing some shaky camera work, a bit of flailing around and the loss of a quadrat it was really neat to sea with habitats under full flow.
The kelp was streaming across the sea floor, flattened and rippling. The craziest part is it was still flying at 48 m depth in our drop camera surveys (see the video). We are going to break the depth rating on our (well cruise leader CJ's) GoPro trying to find the end of these habitats.
As you get shallower and closer to shore the habitat changes. Becomes more scoured and seems like most of the plants are a year old or less. Its a ton of fun diving, you never know what you should expect before you flip in.
We have become a well oiled machine. Get up at 5 AM, launch the zodiac over the side, load in and head to shore. Dive for 3-4 hours and do drop camera surveys. Then speed back to the ship, eat ALL the food remaining from lunch, take a 30 min power nap (or as Ignacio says: 'I shall rest for a small time now'), wake up with coffee, process (cut weigh and measure) kelp until dinner (or after if the site is particularly dense), then enter data as the sun sets. Repeat. These are happy days.
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