Je profite de... la fin de mon voyage, pour vraiment démarrer ce blog ! Plus facile de prendre le temps de faire ça après le voyage...

Pour commencer donc un petit aperçu du trajet Réunion/Crozet à bord du Marion Dufresne... C'est le temps des premiers oiseaux des mers australes, on va les cotoyer pendant 2 mois mais les premiers instants sont quand même magiques...

Assez de paroles....

________For english speaker, see below !_________

I finally start this blog, at the end of my journey !  Easier to do that afterwards...

To start over, a short preview of the Réunion --> Crozet part, on board of the Marion Dufresne. That's where we could see our first austral seabirds. We are going to spent 2 months with them but the first glimpse is always magical.

Enough speaking, let's enjoy the pictures...

    - Le Marion Dufresne -

    Longueur / length : 120.50 m 

    Largeur / wide : 12.80 m

    Tiran d'eau / draught : 6.95 m

    Vitesse maximale / Maximal speed : 16 noeuds / knots

 Le grand départ ...

  Carte Marine

  Départ de la Réunion

Chaîne d'ancre

Vue de la passerelle, vers la poupe

Grand albatros adulte / Wandering Albatross / Diomedea exulans

Grand albatros juvénile

Petrel à menton blanc (Procellaria aequinoctialis)  dans le sillage

Petrel à menton blanc / White-chinned Petrel / Procellaria aequinoctialis

Premier Albatros à sourcils noir / First Black-Browed Albatross/ Thalassarche melanophris

Here we are... Finally Kerguelen... Foggy morning, every one woke up early this morning to see the first appearance of kerguelen behing the clouds... Amazing moment... After entering the main gulf, I finally realised how a big Archipelago it is. Islands every where, some more flat, some huge...

And then the base. Small buildings, here, out of nowhere !

"L'Aventure" came to welcome us and start the transportation of all the materials. We took the helicopter later in the morning and where welcome at the base... New people everywhere after few days in the boat with people we just started to know. Great feeling to be at hour "home for 2 months".

- L'Aventure -

We had a huge lunch, and then we visit a bit the base, our news rooms, and went for a walk to the "Anse des pachas"...

After few days at the base to prepare all the equipment we needed, I went to Pointe Suzanne, where one of the 3 main antarctic fur seal colony takes place. The goal was to equipted 7 adult females with GPS and other recoreders (temperature, depth, ...) externally, to gather data on where they go feeding, and the caracteristics of their environment while at sea.This is a useful tool for oceanography, especially with elephant seals travelling really far and deep, because those are not areas of easy access...

The cabin is also right next to a gentoo penguin colony (!), and of course, there were also elephant seals, giant petrels, skuas, cormrans.. ! So many things in one month ! I had to split the albums into two, for december and january. Enjy the tones of pictures !

More pictures in the albulms Pointe Suzanne December and Pointe Suzanne January...